The Matrix: Ace of Spades
by Joeku
Summary: Wraith, captain of the Last Prophecy, and his crew aboard venture into the Matrix to find a rogue, glitched Agent, and is expanding beyond the normal reaches of an Agent's abilities. Wraith must contend with this and deal with his younger brother. Contain
1. Prologue

Hi, this is the prologue of my Matrix story: Ace of Spades. Neo and the crew are NOT the main characters…which I think is a good thing. Thank you for taking the time to read this, and enjoy!

Silent, stealthy, Warlock crept on the roof a huge building. The mall he was on top of resided in city unfamiliar to him. It had a few large buildings, but not so much that his vision was ever impaired. Now that he thought about it, Warlock realized the mall wasn't much of a building, either.

Crawling further, he reached the glass area of the roof, and determinedly he looked about again for any sign of the Agent that had been following him. Not seeing him in the vicinity, he leaned gingerly over the glass, making sure a trapmind wouldn't spot him in his position on the roof.

Luckily for him, the sky was overcast, so Warlock doubted highly that any pedestrian would look up to gaze at the sky. Breathing heavily, Warlock squinted into the building, frantically searching for the telephone booth he knew was a hardline, a way of escaping the Matrix so that he could return to the real world.

Under his breath, he cursed his luck. Hardlines were usually located in a remote location, derelict of any passers-by who could note his strange behavior. This hardline, however, sat in the middle of a public location. Warlock knew he had to time his escape right. He would have to contact his operator, and get him to activate the hardline, a telltale sign of this the phone ringing. Then he would have to pick it up before any pedestrian strayed to it and answered the phone by accident.

Warlock peered around himself on the roof again for any sign of Agents in the vicinity, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a small black cell phone. Raising the cell phone to his ear and flipping it open, it automatically turned on, in contact with another person.

"Operator," came the high-pitched, though subtly sexual, female voice on the other end. This was Cosine, a female who, like Warlock, was released from the Matrix many years ago. She was the Operator on the ship Warlock resided in, the _Prophetic Vision_. The _Vision_ was currently located in the real world, where Warlock wished to be.

"Cosine, I need you to activate the hardline on my signal," Warlock said in his would-be-calm voice. He was trained to always remain briskly calm in every situation, though his heart was pumping quickly, as he knew an Agent wasn't far. He had to act fast. "I'm above the hardline now, there's just too many people in there. We can't risk getting one of them fried answering the phone," he stated firmly.

On the other end of the quickened conversation, he heard Cosine pause her breathing, a simple sign that she was currently running some sort of scan. "It looks like you have a lot of time, Warlock," she said calmly. "I don't detect any Agents near-WAIT!" Both Warlock and she paused their breathing simultaneously; Warlock's heart beat ever faster as he awaited something from Cosine.

"Well?" he whispered half-heartedly. He thought he knew what she had found, and horribly for him, he was correct.

"It's-it's an Agent, Warlock! Get the hell outta there!" She bellowed into the headset that he knew she wore on her beautiful auburn head. The calmness in her voice was now lost completely.

"Activate the damn line!" he roared back into the small phone in his hand. He heard her rapid typing into the console in front of her, then a small whimper.

"Go…hurry, he's right behind you!" She shouted at him. Warlock couldn't hear the phone two floors below him, but he knew at that moment it was ringing. Wasting no time in confirming his thoughts, he raised his right hand, which was carrying the cell phone, while simultaneously reaching into his elongated jacket for his weapon. He pulled out his gun, a large automatic pistol, and slammed his right elbow down to the glass, breaking a small section of it.

A bullet narrowly missed his head and erupted into his phone, which promptly exploded into a thousand small pieces. Eyes dilating, Warlock risked a glance over his shoulder, and a blue coloration arose in his face as he saw the Agent behind him, firing his own Desert Eagle at him.

With a panicked cry, Warlock rose to his feet, turning to blast a few bullets at the Agent, which all missed widely. The Agent fired again as he calmly strode towards Warlock, but missed only by the breadth of an inch. With an anguished, inaudible cry, Warlock brought himself to his senses. He focused his mind and body, attempting to harness into the power of the Matrix. His eyes closed, and when he reopened them, everything was in slow motion, as thought time had slowed to allow Warlock the ability to perform past normal human limitations.

The Agent, having picked up on Warlock's gestures as he tapped into the Matrix, increased his stride into a slow-motion run. He fired his gun more rapidly, shooting what would be nearly five bullets a second. Warlock ducked under two of the bullets, which could clearly have been seen in this slowed frame of mind.

The fear had dropped somewhat considerably from Warlock's face. This is what he liked, entering himself and combining with the Matrix. It gave him a feel of superiority, of God-like powers, in which he could perform whatever he wished. A look of renewed confidence entered his face, and he focused on the Agent, who was coming ever nearer, and mightily fired off several rounds of bullets towards the oncoming doom.

The Agent paused briefly, and blurred as he spun his torso around to dodge the bullets soaring towards him. He stopped dead and raised his Desert Eagle once again, firing off many more rounds at Warlock.

He jumped up into the air, and rolled sideways. Landing, he went onto one hand, kicked off from the ground, and fired with his other hand towards the Agent as he flipped through the air. The two traded bullets, once again entering nearer to each other's vicinity as the Agent began to close space again.

In the heat of battle, Warlock had forgotten his purpose for being on the roof. Losing all sense of combat, he turned towards the glass, and dove into it. It shattered slowly, and fortunately for him, nobody had picked up the ringing telephone, having been distracted by the gunfight on top of the building. Many of the scared faces turned towards him.

Landing softly on the hard ground inside the mall, Warlock heard a large crash and screams as the Agent landed behind him, creating a small crater in the ground. Looking frantically around, warlock searched with his eyes for the phone. In the dead silence of all the eyes on him and the agent, he could hear the phone, and turning around, his heart dropped as he saw it ten feet behind the Agent who was making this day a living hell.

With a look of resignation, Warlock dived at the Agent as the Agent did likewise, though with a completely calm expression. They fired at each other as they slowly floated through the air towards each other, but both missed and hit bystanders. All pedestrians shot seemed to be hit melodramatically in the slow-motion world Warlock had activated in his mind, as they slowly flailed their limbs and fell to the ground.

Warlock swore inwardly at himself, breaking his concentration, but losses had to be endured for the better of the entirety of the Matrix. A bullet sliced through his left shoulder, and pain exploded inside his body. He lost focus and thought, and fell normally to the ground, shuddering in pain. The Agent landed behind him, and Warlock knew they had reverted to normal speed when he heard some pedestrians gasp at what had just happened, and others scream, noticing their dead friends or family.

The Agent, choosing to enjoy and savor his victory over the Freemind, walked over to him instead of ending his pain by blasting him in the back of the head with his strong weapon.

Warlock soon wished the Agent had.

The Agent grabbed him by the back collar of his clothes, and hoisted him into the air. He paused briefly, and Warlock tried to tense every muscle in his body as the Agent slammed him face first into the ground. Stars swam in front of his eyes and blaring pain seared through his body as the Agent ravaged the ground with his body several times.

Hoping it was over as the Agent dropped him on the floor again, Warlock loosened his muscles, and rested face down. His brain swam in his head, and he tried to open his eyes, coming to all fours on his hands and knees. Everything was blurred, but still he could make out a foot as it appeared in his view.

Shutting his eyes again, Warlock felt himself being punted from the ground, and soaring through the air. He fell through a pane of glass, crashed into a shelf of books, knocking the entire shelf over. A domino effect ensued, as what sounded like twenty shelves fell one after another.

The Agent hopped over a pool in the center of the area in the mall, knocking an old man into it and sending a wave onto the floor with his speed through the air. He landed inside the bookstore, and hoisted Warlock into the air by his neck this time. His grip tightened, and he choked the little remaining life out of Warlock's lungs. Warlock's eyes opened wide, and he felt them popping out of his head.

He gazed down into the face of his doom, and resignedly glared at him. For the first time the Agent spoke.

"That's right, Mr. Knox," the Agent said to Warlock, tightening his grip. Allen Knox was Warlock's Matrix name, the name that the Agents would know him by. "Never say die," the Agent finished.

Warlock glared once again into those placid, shaded eyes.

"I'm Agent Malcolm," came the Agent's voice, "Nice knowing you."

With another firm clasp of his hands he not only suffocated Warlock, but crushed his neck at the same time.

Agent Malcolm dropped the carcass carelessly to the ground, placed his gun away, and with his other hand, reached up and fixed his tie. He then calmly walked out of the mall, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.


	2. Book 1: Chapter 1

The man by the name of Wraith lay in the tall grass surrounding him, keeping his right eye clinched shut, and his left looking through the depths of a sniper scope lens to a view of a hundred yards away. He inhaled his breath halfway, and fired off a single shot freely. The bullet soared silently through the air to hit perfectly home. The target, a small but strong looking man, rocked forward and backward with the bullet through his brain, then fell over and died, soaking the grass under his face with blood and spittle.

He reached up and wiped his brow. He was a lucky man. If the terrorist he had just shot had turned another 45 degrees, he would have seen the group of would-be commandoes and raised an alarm. The team could not allow that.

"Let's go, team," Wraith spoke in his calm, yet powerful, voice. The microphone he wore on his head sent the message to the others. The entire team of seven people rose from the ground and rushed forward through the tall grasses of the Taiwan forest they were in. Being in the middle of the group, Wraith was impressed by the team's efficiency. The entire team was spread around him ten yards away at exact points on the clock, and their army brown and green clothing provided them excellent cover in the heavy underbrush of the region.

Both Flash and Ice Fox were most forward in the group, at one and eleven O'clock, respectively. Wraith had put them there willingly, as they were the best near-range gunners the entire crew of the _Prophetic Vision_. Both men carried M4A1 rifles that were silenced, so as not to attract too much attention if shots had to be fired before the insertion point. Ice Fox, forward and to Wraith's right, was a very large man, easily the largest of the Freemind Commandoes, as Cosine had jokingly called them. Ice Fox's huge form still was hidden well by his camouflage paint, and he charged forward with his gun always aimed at areas he suspected a terrorist foe might be hiding. Fox's thoughts were always concentrated on his paranoia, which sometimes would make him crack under pressure. The other man, forward and to Wraith's left, was known as Flash. Before he was released from the Matrix, Flash was a born and bred Texan, complete with the accent. Upon entering the real world, the area outside the Matrix, he still had his accent and wily, happy-go-lucky attitude. Though he did receive the mind-peace training that allowed all other Freeminds to keep a straight face, Flash ignored his training and kept acting like an old fashioned cowboy.

The team reached their destination, a large, black gate built into some old ruins, without a hitch. Wraith turned to examine his team, whilst pulling out a cell phone. He brought the out of place technology up to his hear.

"Operator?" came the beautiful voice of his sister, Cosine. She was the operator onboard the ship _Prophetic Vision_, the ship to which Wraith was the captain, and the rest of the team were either gunners or operatives. Cosine was much a beautiful woman, and many of the men who served onboard the _Vision_ would have likely made a move on her, but the fact that the Captain was her brother and would likely beat them to within an inch of their life should his sister become impregnated, stopped the men from doing anything.

"Alright, sis, I need to know how many programs there are in here, and where the hell the Agent is." Wraith spoke his words into the cell phone, and all the other Freemind Commandoes could, because of the microphone on Wraith's head, hear the conversation.

"Well, Wraith, I can tell you that there are at least twenty programs in there, and the Agent though…"

"What?" Wraith asked forcefully. By his tone, his sister knew he did not want to be met with trouble, so she was slow to answer him.

"I can't fully detect the Agent," Cosine said, still managing to sound somewhat happy. "He's managed to set up some bubble-like shape around him, and I can't detect precisely where he is inside of it."

This information wasn't in itself all that disturbing to Wraith, but knowing his sister, she was going to leave the worst part for last. "…And?"

"And the bubble is has a radius of over 500 yards, Wraith." These words hit Wraith hard. That meant that within the catacombs that were after the courtyard behind the black gate, the Agent was hiding, waiting for them, and they had no way of knowing where he was, or if he had more program aids in his bubble with him.

"DAMMIT! How much crap can this bastard make?" Wraith shouted loudly, and a pair of birds flew out of a tree overhead, rushing away from the loud activity. Wraith scolded himself inwardly for his outburst, and shunted aside his anger by closing his eyes and focusing on the situation.

The team on the _Vision_ was after the Agent that had killed Warlock three weeks ago. They discovered, though, that the Agent they were after had the strange ability to create objects in the Matrix of his own accord. They learned through observation that this practice took time to do, though. They eventually tracked the Agent down to this location in Thailand, where he had set up a small base in a remote location to serve as a hub. They also assumed that the Agent created guards and the bubble cover for purposes to hide something that he was creating, even from other Agents, and it must have been something powerful if he had need to take this much time.

At first the team supposed that the Agent's uncanny ability to randomly create objects was a purposeful ability provided to him by the Matrix, but then they guessed that it was not, and assumed that this was a glitch in the program. Glitches were rare in the Matrix, but appeared every so often. Things such as a flag failing to wave in the wind, or a fish with one too many fins were bound to happen. Even physics itself were a major glitch, especially the fact that a round ball and a round bat can connect solidly to make a powerful force. The chances of an Agent being a glitch though, were highly unlikely.

The Freemind Commandoes were now here in the Matrix to stop the Agent from whatever he was doing, and get revenge on the Agent for killing Warlock. When Wraith had heard Cosine's screaming three weeks ago onboard the _Vision_ in the real world, his heart had dropped out his stomach and he rushed to the front of the ship where the jack-in ports were to find his sister sobbing with her head faced away from Wraith on Warlock's chest. Warlock had blood leaking out the corners of his mouth, and Wraith had known that he was dead. He dropped his head and closed his eyes from the tears that came to them, and heard many footsteps come from behind him, then slowly walk away accompanying the occasional weeping sob.

Now, though, back in the Matrix, the sadness of Warlock's death had disappeared, and only anger and frustration and the lust for revenge remained in Wraith's head.

_And revenge we will have_, thought Wraith.

He turned back to his team and nodded at them. Both Flash and Ice Fox waited on each side of the door, preparing to jump in once it was open. One more people rushed forward to the door to stand beside Wraith, and the final three teammates remained away from the door, and were destined to stay behind until the gunfighting slowed down a bit, so that they could enter and lop off some heads with their close combat skills.

The light man who rushed forward was known as Lost Hope, the name which was derived as a play on words of his former name in the Matrix, Lest Hurnpoff. This man was smaller than most, and skinny as well. He was mostly suited to ranged weaponry, but could hold his own in a close combat situation. He was light and lanky, and skilled in flips and dodging, provided him excellent skill in firefights, where he could shoot, then dodge opponent's bullets, then shoot more.

Lost Hope came forward and removed the satchel from his back, and brought a detonator into his hand to show Wraith. Wraith nodded and turned away from him to concentrate on his conversation with his sister.

"Alright then, sis, I'll call you once we clear the courtyard." Wraith spoke his words with finality, and Cosine knew by this that there was no need to respond. Wraith snapped the phone closed and tucked it into his bulletproof vest.

"Okay, boys, let's blow this sucker!" he said happily to assure the teams morality was high when they entered the courtyard to begin battling. He also stripped off the satchel from his back, and placed it next to the other, in front of the door. Both bags carried high-powered bombs, and Wraith definitely wanted to be shielded from the blast, so he jumped behind a rock away from the door and drew the detonator from his pocket.

"Ready when you are sir," came the anxious voice of Lost Hope.

Wraith swallowed hard one more time and prepared himself, then began a countdown into his mike. "3…2…1…NOW!" At the final word, both he and Lost Hope pressed their detonators, igniting the two explosives and sending the still locked together doors flying through the courtyard.

The initial four who were entering the courtyard charged inside, muscles tense, guns blazing.

Deep inside the catacombs of the ruins, Agent Malcolm stood stock still, his eyes closed, and he could feel the blast of the courtyard gates from over six hundred yards away. This shook him from his reverie and he angrily grunted, looking around at the personal guards he had assembled around him.

He reached out with his mind, sensing the gates, sensing the individuals entering them. It was a large amount of Freeminds, and they had heavy weaponry.

He looked to the personal, souped up guards around him. "Go. Get them. Show no mercy. I have not yet completed it. They cannot find me here. I have to get out. Go and keep them busy, I'll need at least twenty minutes."

Malcolm then went back into his deranged statue-esque stance, and in his mind he could feel the gash inside, the hole in his programming that allowed him access to the very elements of the Matrix itself. At first, many weeks ago when he realized his ability, he had for the first time ever, felt surprise. The fact that he could feel such strong emotions was amazing in itself, and he expanded on it, tearing the hole in his mind ever wider, ever deeper.

His access to the Matrix's core became relevant, and he attained the ability to conjure things from his mind. It drained much out of him, and complex things, such as living beings, took him an insanely long amount of time and energy to create.

Realizing that over twenty of his creations were about to perish, Agent Malcolm felt anger, and regret. The anger about the situation was obvious. The Freeminds were trying to get to him, to end his life.

The regret, though, made him more surprised as ever, as this was a compassionate emotion, one that he, as an Agent, should not experience. The good side of him was uneasy, and he tried to shunt the compassionate emotions for his creations from his mind, while trying to enhance the anger, to rip the hole further. He felt, strangely, that the stronger emotion needed to take precedence. The simple _wrongness_ in having a compassionate emotion tore him even further from his original programming.

He began to focus on his regret, his sorrow, and tore further away from his core programming as he searched through the Matrix for the thing he desired.

And with every rip he made, he came closer to being human.

Wraith ran into the courtyard, blasting his M4A1 around, and hitting a program terrorist square in the chest, sending him falling over backwards to die, and stain the pale brown coloured ground a dark maroon. He ducked under a stream of bullets from another terrorist, and rolled to the side, then kicked himself ten feet into the air, concentrating. In the air he spotted the surprised program that was firing at him, and focused in on the Matrix, defying gravity still, and concentrating hard, he pumped a single bullet into the programs head, making it explode in a shower of blood and brain juices.

He landed softly, and looked around quickly to see how the others were fairing.

Ice Fox had, like Wraith, been belching bullets into terrorists. He had downed three in a neat line, and was approaching a fourth. The program dropped his guns and threw his hands up to recklessly shield his face. For this stupidity Fox ran up to the man who was more than a foot shorter than he, and delivered a powerful smash on the side of his head with his gun, sending the small program flying into and cratering the nearby wall. Fox pumped a few bullets into him just to be sure he was dead, and continued on his rampage.

Both Flash and Lost Hope were nearing the catacombs, shooting a path through. Wraith counted seven dead bodies on the ground, and noted that both young men were quick on their feet, and even quicker with their aiming.

Wraith felt himself lucky when a bullet raced past him, narrowly missing his leg, and angrily turned to the source of the attack, riddling the body of the program with lead. Another program behind that which he most recently killed was apparently very skilled in sharpshooting, and was knelt down. He fired a single bullet towards Wraith, which would have killed him, aside from the fact that he could utilize the Matrix to his whims to slow down time itself.

He ran at first towards the bullet, which he could now clearly see in the slow motion world he was in. The sounds of other guns bellowing off became clearer to him, as did his vision and all of his skills. He leapt up into the air, and shot his limbs out like a star, while making his body parallel to the ground, and the bullet that had killing power passed harmlessly half a foot beneath his  body. He landed into a slow forward roll, and came up twenty feet from the sniper. Wraith smiled and brought his gun forward, then fired a single shot, which sliced forward through the air, and soared right into the barrel of the sniper rifle held by the rogue program. The program, at that time, fired again, and the resulting effect sent the programs body parts caressing through the air at odd angles, accompanied by a somewhat large explosion.

Wraith dropped back into real-time, and noticed that there were no more programs nearby himself, so he looked back to the gate, to see the other three members of the team rushing forward to clean up. The three were Pike, Webb, and RAM, the first of which was Wraith's younger brother by three years.

Pike was an enigmatic person of sorts, and for many reasons. Firstly, he preferred to carry dual katanas to guns, long swords with which he had a skill that was matched by no other. Secondly, he was happy and immature. That wasn't all to bad, and showed how Pike and Cosine were related with their similar attitudes, but the strange part was that he seemed to cast off an aura of age and experience, which was ironic, given that he was twenty nine years old and, as was stated before, immature. The final thing that made him awkward was the fact that he had much deeper abilities in the Matrix than any other member in the crew, and any other person Wraith had ever met, for that matter. With this insane skill to slow down the Matrix with twice as much slowdown as any other crewmember, Pike could deflect nearly a hundred bullets with his two katanas, rendering him nearly invincible.

It was likely for his strangeness that Wraith shunned and oppressed his younger sibling, but deep down inside of himself, Wraith knew the real reason was because he feared his brother's abilities and the fact that his experience and age seemed timeless, though he had spent three years less in the Matrix than Wraith had.

Pike, as he rushed into the Thai ruins, held a high-caliber pistol in his hands, though his signature katanas were strapped to his back in individual scabbards, with each hilt being easily accessible above his shoulders. Pike fired off his Model 18 pistol, which was one of the few pistols in the Matrix that could fire many bullets automatically by simply holding down the trigger. The few bullets he fired off missed a terrorist wide, and Pike's clip emptied, so he decided to employ the powers of the Matrix.

Wraith, being in real-time, watched his brother for less than two seconds as he drew another clip, placed it into the butt of the pistol, reloaded, and drew around the program to shoot him in the  back of the head from point blank range. As usual, Wraith was amazed at the speed in which he could perform maneuvers such as these, and every time he just seemed to be getting faster and faster.

The second man into the courtyard to do battle with terrorists was a man of average build and height, though amazing skill. Webb was once a man of peace in the Matrix, when he lived in China. He had mastered calming techniques in his mind and learned how to use a 6-foot staff to the best of his abilities. His martial arts skills were extreme, and he'd flow so cleanly between Matrix powers to real-time that'd his fights would look much like a well-choreographed dance, and he could take on ten people or more in hand to hand combat, with or without his staff. His one major fault though, was his complete inability to use a gun, so at a distance he would have no luck in a battle until he closed to a melee distance.

As Webb ran into the courtyard ruins, he immediately pulled himself into the Matrix and was staff-wielding blur as he quickly rushed right to the entrance of the catacombs, and hopped over Flash and Lost Hope in real-time, then flicked back into his Matrix powers and continued on, stopping momentarily to trip a terrorist program, and stabbed the staff into his abdomen as he was still in the air, sending him caressing through the air to crash onto the ground far away, clearly dead. Webb then continued on his charge towards the catacombs, with Flash and Lost Hope now hot on his heels.

The final man to charge through into the courtyard went by the name of Random Access Memory, or RAM for short. He seemed to be a hybrid of Pike and Webb. He mimicked Wraith in size and build, though Wraith dwarfed him in age by nearly ten years. Before RAM was freed from the Matrix, he was a Russian computer hacker, then turned to Martial Arts when he finally succeeded in conquering the world's hardest computer. He mastered the art of sword and gun simultaneously, and ever since, he has always used both his sword and his famed F57 pistol in perfect unison. He also, through his martial arts training, learned to focus his thoughts and energies into his sword, and he could deflect a single bullet in any direction he wanted, so he could return a bullet back to it's owner's heart. He often boasted this ability in his light Russian accent, and was always ready for a fight, though when it came down to a life and death situation, such as this moment, he was always concentrated and centered.

Unlike either Webb or Pike, though, RAM came sprinting up to Wraith. He stopped easily in front of him, and Wraith, noticing that he had neither drawn his blade or his firearm, raised his eyebrow toward RAM.

"I thought you always wanted to fight, RAM?" Wraith asked matter-of-factly. In answer to this, RAM simply shrugged and shook his head lightly, though Wraith noticed he kept his eyes hungrily on the carnage of battle.

"Vell…I need to prepare my mind for the comingk battle with the Agent." RAM retorted this statement just as matter-of-factly as Wraith had said to him, as if he was insinuating that Wraith was acting dumb by not figuring this out for himself.

Rather than see it as insubordination, Wraith shrugged the comment out of his mind by thinking it a joking comment. He would have to help RAM with his English jokes. He nodded to RAM, and then snapped his neck both left and right, then motioned for RAM to follow him as he began to slowly make his way to the entrance to the catacombs.

He saw Ice Fox charging forward to one of the few remaining programs, on the far side courtyard, shouting an inaudible battle cry which shook the terrorist in his boots. Wraith noticed that his younger brother, Pike, was hot on his heels. Pike charged forward with amazing speed, and then leapt up sideways. Defying all the laws of gravity, he began to run along the wall, bringing his two swords into his hands in a stabbing position. He passed over Ice Fox sideways and jumped off the wall, cartwheeling and landing back into a run on the ground. His feet sped along the ground, and he neared the program, who began firing at him.

Without hearing it, Wraith knew his brother was laughing at the doomed terrorist as the programs oncoming doom sped ever closer.  Pike jumped up and over the false terrorist, performing a corkscrew flip which had him land facing the program, whom all the time was firing wildly at him, and turned to face Pike.

That was a big mistake.

Ice Fox neared the false being and jabbed his gun into the small of his back, then smiled heartily and fired, ripping a hole in the program's torso and spewing guts and blood all over the courtyard's hard stone floor.

With only two live terrorists remaining, the courtyard now looked more like an untended graveyard than a once glorious hall of a king. Bodies littered the ground, and Wraith smiled as he noted that not a single member of the Freemind Commandoes had taken an injury. Any time an casualty was avoided was a good time.

As Webb fought the final foes at the entrance to the catacombs and Flash and Lost Hope reached the entrance, the other four began an awkwardly calm walk among bodies that littered the ground to the catacombs.

Webb preformed an amazing maneuver by swinging up his staff to hit a program terrorist in the chin, sending him flying straight up into the air. Webb then turned to the other and jumped up, using his staff for leverage, planted his feet on either side of the program's head, then twisted his heels, snapping his neck. Webb spun, utilizing his powers, and smacked the last terrorist in the gut as he came back down to the earth, sending him cascading along to ground to slide amazingly fast into the courtyard's outer wall headfirst, creating a hole with his primary appendage.

Flash looked downcast that there were no more enemies to kill. His shoulders drooped as he stood at the entrance to the catacombs, and Lost Hope sullenly hooked his gun into place on his back, then leant against the wall, crossing his arms. Both Ice Fox and Pike slowly walked to the others, Fox with his slow, powerful gait and long strides, Pike with his wiry smile and quick steps.

The seven converged at the catacomb entrance as RAM and Wraith approached, and Wraith wasted no time in glaring at his younger brother for no apparent reason aside to scold him for being so happy. Pike simply brought on a look of innocent confusion and shrugged with his arms, which made Wraith frustrated.

Wraith sighed and reached into his vest to pull out his cell phone, while keeping an evil eye on Pike, who retained his look of innocence. Before Wraith could even speak, his sister's voice rang into his ear.

"It's about time!" Wraith's sister said over the portable phone, and Wraith knew by her no-longer cheery tone that something was bad. Very bad.

"The Agent has sent us some friends."

"C'mon, Cosine, I don't have time for this shit! If it's bad, I need to know! Now!" By his sharp tone and harsh words, Cosine noted that because of her own fearful voice, she had struck fear in him. She also realized that she had to tell him all the information. Now.

"Well, I have good news and bad news, and some not so bad news," she stated, and dared to wait for a response from Wraith.

"Good news first," came a voice. But it wasn't Wraiths. It was Pike's. Wraith glared down at his brother, who shrunk back. At that point Wraith realized that discipline was another reason he was harsh with his brother. Pike would assume that because he and Wraith were of the same blood, he had more rights. Wraith had to prove him wrong in the only way he could, and thus he punished and oppressed his brother.

"Well," came the beautiful voice of Cosine, which brought Wraith from his reverie of thoughts. "The Agent dropped his protective bubble. I scanned the catacombs, and I can guide you to him.

"And there are ten more programs on their way to your position."

Wraith spoke next. "That news isn't so bad."

"Well, that _was_ the not so bad news." Wraith heard a small chuckle in his microphone, and glared at the former Texan, Flash, who immediately donned a non-chalant gaze and shut up under the harsh eyes of Wraith.

"What is the bad news then?" Wraith asked his sister through the cell phone. Her voice began to get shaky.

"The Agent tagged them…added a note to them. It says _'Enjoy humans version 2.0. Good luck. You'll need it.'_"

Wraith clearly noted fear rippling through a few members of the Freemind Commandoes, though he himself was more intrigued as to why the Agent had opted to tag them in the first place, and add humour to the tag at that. _Something strange is going on here. This Agent definitely isn't normal._

Wraith's thoughts were interrupted by his sister's voice again. "Wraith, they're two hundred yards from you. And…and…they're utilizing powers to go at amazing speeds. They…they're going as fast as you do when you harness the Matrix."

At this note fear soon sped down Wraith's spine to numb his entire body. _The Agent…he can create Matrix harnessers!_ His thoughts were once again interrupted, this time from a flurry of footfalls coming from the catacombs, growing nearer every second. The entire team, aside from Wraith set themselves into a fighting stance, either extending their gun or sword forward to point down the dark, descending tunnel.

"G…good luck, Wraith."

"See you soon, sis." Wraith inhaled deeply and closed the cell phone, placing it inside his vest again. He too brought his gun forward. 

Then he saw them.

They were seven feet tall. They had arms as wide as an average person's waist. Their size matched that of Ice Fox, their speed like Webb's. Wraith had no doubt that they could fight like Pike either.

As the bestial programs closed on them, and dove towards the Freemind Commandoes, a single thought came to Wraith's mind.

This was going to be one hell of a fight.


	3. Book 1: Chapter 2

With a grimace Wraith pictured he and the rest of the Freemind Commandoes being torn limb from limb by these gigantic monsters. As he glanced around at the rest of the team, he assumed they had derived approximately similar impressions of them.

The very first of the beasts lunged up into the air before he would come down to attack Webb, who had his staff forward at the ready. Wraith took this opportunity to kill the bastardized being before he had time to kill them.

"Fire!" he roared, and within seconds bullets pierced every nook and cranny in the insanely huge body of the Human 2.0. The monster had tried to harness the Matrix and roll through the air to avoid the lead bolts targeting his immense body, but was overwhelmed. Wraith knew he had even first scored the killing hit by firing a series of bullets which strafed across the beasts neck, severing his head.

The 2.0's head lolled off its ruined and riddled body to fall on the ground, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop on the stump of it's wide neck, resting at an odd angle in which its right ear nearly touched the already bloody battlefield. The body then collapsed nearby, with the bloodied area where the neck had previously been landing a few feet from the head, with the arms, one of which's hand had been dissipated, formed a diamond-shape as the seemed to reach longingly towards the head…towards life.

Wraith then turned back to the oncoming army of hell to see a close-quarters battle ensuing between Webb and two of titanic beings. He tried to sweep the monster off its feet, but it jumped up amazingly lightly over the pole and delivered a swift kick straight to Webb, sending him soaring into the air to crash against the wall, temporarily unconscious.

More rushed forward and literally flew through the air, knocking Freeminds back left and right. Wraith saw Pike was one of the few who had managed to dodge this attack. He had jumped up and splayed his limbs horizontally as Wraith had done earlier, and brought both his swords forward to roll midair, whilst slicing open the monster's back. It wasn't dead, but injured.

Wraith then had to utilize the Matrix himself to manage to twist and lean insanely to the side to dodge a monstrous kick. He brought his gun forward and fired, but the bullets harmlessly grazed the giant's arm. Wraith again dodged, left, right, left, and he jumped over a sweeping blow, and twirled through the air to remove himself from the path of a few punches. He landed, and was hit right in the chest from a single punch.

His breath escaped his lungs, and the gigantic fist of the beast sent him flying back before falling and sliding on the ground. He took an opportunity to hastily reload his gun then fired off a few rounds at the monster, who likewise shifted his massive arms and torso around, missing every bullet. The beast tramped forward across the bloodied courtyard, making quakes as he ran towards Wraith.

Wraith inhaled a deep breath, and tensed his fists beyond imagination with harnessed powers. He slammed each on the ground on their respective sides, sending his upper body flying up to bring him to a standing position. He dropped to a low defensive stance, deciding to try another form of attack. After latching his M4A1 onto his back, he squared his legs low, creating a pentagon with his body and the ground.

Bringing his fists forward, but still near his body, he dared risk a quick glance to see how the others were doing, and what a sight it was.

Webb, Pike, and Ice Fox were all back to back, triangulating careful attacks on the ring of 2.0's which surrounded them. They managed to fare pretty well, with only some cuts and small wounds on them. The six beasts around them would jump forward, be either shot back or knocked back, and then they'd circle again. At least they'd killed two already.

Lost Hope, RAM, and Flash were each squaring off against their own monster, firing at them, then either jumping away or getting hit by a huge punch or kick. Wraith saw Flash get knocked down by an axe-handle, and stomped on a couple of times before he managed to roll away from the gigantic boot of the titan.

Wraith turned back to his own challenge, and ducked a huge roundhouse punch, then focused in on his being and beliefs, and tripped the monster in slow motion. He quickly brought up a knee to belt the thing up into the air, then charged in with a drop kick at chest height to boot the beast far away. Wraith backflipped off the kick and landed back a few feet on the ground, then turned around for a minute, to see another of the identical human-monsters charging him. He once again focused in, this time running forward unexpectedly, and catching the beast off-guard.

It was going to fast and uncontrolled from it's sprint to manage to have time to strike at Wraith, so Wraith took this opportunity to bat the abomination of the Matrix with his foot, spinning it around, then unleashing his other leg on the back of it's neck, sending it onto the ground face first.

Wraith landed, and with amazing speed he brought his weapon forward and shot the monster, who's head promptly exploded in a shower of blood and gore. Wraith's green attire was now stained a pale maroon, and he stopped to eye his clothing with a cunning smile. He then turned around to see the beast he had knocked away before returning for round two.

And give it to him he did.

Wraith confidently unleashed some of his best moves on the thing. It had to throw it's arms and legs around like a hummingbird's wings to stop the attack. His blocks began to come later and later, and Wraith knew he had almost reached the point where he could kill it. He brought his gun out after twirling a few feet off the ground in a helicopter kick, then slammed the M4A1's barrel into it's gut deeply, and fired off several rounds.

The 2.0 beast bellowed, and clutched at it's gut, bending over. Wraith shattered it's chin with another harsh attack from the assault rifle, and as the mammoth being brought it's head up in a rush of pain, Wraith ended that sense by blasting the brute's neck and chest open with his firearm, staining his clothing even more as the demonic being slumped to the ground in a heap of blood and body.

Just as he relished in his kill, Wraith was nearly knocked out from a kick to the back of his head. He fell forwards, and caught himself with his hand, using the force of the blow as momentum, and went down, and then pushed out with his hand to flip forward. The leader of the Freemind Commandoes quickly landed and turned, attempting to catch this other marvel of the Matrix off guard with a punch. He roared in agony as it caught his fist easily and squeezed, beginning to crush his bones.

It did just that, as Wraith screamed out. His bones crunched sickeningly and Wraith had to use all his strength and focus to not black out. He jumped up and kicked the massive arm that held his ruined hand, releasing it from the giant's grip. It was like mold, and wobbled freely in the air. Wraith followed up his first kick with another deadly one, which was stopped by the beast's forearm as it brought it up to stifle the blow.

It quickly reacted, grabbing his ankle with one hand, and turning to grab his knee with his far hand, then twisted Wraith around in the air. He stopped spinning and was hung in the air by his leg, which was near completely shadowed by the demon's arms. It brought up it's knee, and brought down it's arms, breaking Wraith's right leg neatly in the middle of his shin.

Wraith again bellowed in pain. His left leg and right hand were now both broken, and he was doomed to die at the hands of this fell beast. It grabbed his chest with a massive hand and lifted him by the collar of his camouflage jacket, which was stained with blood both Wraith's and others. It brought it's left hand back, and prepared to deliver the killing blow, smiling to reveal pearly white teeth.

It's smile suddenly vanished, and it's face became strangely non-chalant. It showed no emotion at all, and then slowly but steadily its head bloodily slid off the beast's neck on an angle, and fell to the ground. The body then also fell forward, dropping Wraith on his hindquarters on the bloody ground. He looked confused until he saw what was behind the monster.

It was Pike. He stood with one of his swords extended out, as if frozen after an attack. Fresh blood dripped from the tip, and after a moment Pike moved, and leant down to wipe his sword off on a dry location on the Human 2.0's clothing.

"There, you go, bro, now you owe me one," Wraith's brother cockily said. Wraith stood, and hobbled on his good leg, wordlessly tromping past his younger brother to assess the situation.

It was a bad one. Most of the things were dead. Webb and RAM were finishing off the final one near the cave entrance. Lost Hope was favouring his left shoulder, which was clearly broken. He converged with Pike and Wraith, who noticed that Pike was nearly completely unhurt. He was supporting a few cuts and a hefty gash on his chest, but was the least injured of the team.

Flash was another story. He was being carried like a baby in the arms of Ice Fox as he approached Wraith. Nearing the Freemind Commandoes leader, Flash was revealed to Wraith to be completely knocked out, sporting broken bones everywhere. His gut had bullet holes in it, and part of his skull appeared to be collapsed.

Ice Fox, who was covered with some heavy cuts and gashes,  answered Wraith's question before he had a chance to ask it. "He was up against three of those bastards. They knocked him out, and we killed two before the last could grab his gun and blast him a few times."

"Is he going to make it?" Pike asked, clearly worried.

Wraith turned to his brother, nearly in anger for a reason his didn't know. "No, he's not."

This blatant point forced Pike to tears. He turned from his brother, and grabbed the gun that was previously held by Flash. He looked up at Wraith, and he saw the anger and pain in Pike's eyes. He silently handed Wraith the gun, and turned to take a few steps towards the cave, and stopped stock still, facing away from his dying comrade.

"Kill him," came the disheartening voice of Pike. His shoulders began to bounce up and down as weeps escaped his chest. He lowered his head and quietly sobbed.

Webb and RAM were on their way towards the group where Ice Fox began to tear, and one dropped from his large head to fall on Flash's unconscious form. He lowered his body to the ground, and then stood, looking down at his friend.

Lost Hope put his head in his hand and managed not to cry, though Wraith could tell he too was torn up inside. Webb and RAM neared the group, sporting bad injuries, and both stopped in horror, seeing the nearly dead Flash on the ground, with Wraith pointing a gun to his head.

Wraith slipped his thumb over a switch on the M4A1, changing it to single fire. He leaned closer to Flash and placed the crosshairs directly over his forehead. "Goodbye…friend."

Wraith spoke these words, and then fired a bullet into Flash's head, ending his life.

Pike roared, still facing away from them. "The Agent…I'm gonna kill that fucker!" He charged off, sprinting fast towards and through the entrance to the cave, charging towards the glitched Agent.

Wraith stood again, and wiped away a tear from his face with a bloody hand. "C'mon, we have to go stop Pike from taking on the Agent himself." He dropped the gun onto Flash's dead body, and turned to walk away. He stopped his hobbling after a few steps, and turned to the team. "Dammit! C'mon! How many of us do you wan to die today?"

This brought them to their senses, and they all hurried as fast as they could towards the cave with their wounds, leaving real life behind.

Malcolm stopped his splicing into the depths of the Matrix, and reached out with his mind, sensing approaching Freeminds. "No. Not yet. The time is not come for you…"

Agent Malcolm knew he needed to leave. He was physically much too drained to fight the Freeminds, even though he was an Agent. He would be demolished…and he knew it, because he had a hard time even walking around.

He hurriedly focused on his strongest emotion, worry, and at that point found a way of escape. He smiled deeply, experiencing his strongest happiness ever at the knowledge of his newfound ability. He was soon crushed emotionally by the realization that all of his 2.0 Humans were killed.

Damning the Freeminds, he left a note for them, and an object they'd find useful. He would have to continue his creation later, and deliver his vengeance on the Freeminds.

For now though, he had to escape this cave. He focused on his new ability, using his increasing worry to intensify his efficiency with it, and then his body began to ripple in to the center of his torso on the surface, much like a pool of water would if a rock was dropped into it. He rippled faster and faster, and then his body began to spin and conform through the air, like a vortex, and then was consumed by the central point in his torso. It eventually collapsed into nothingness, and Agent Malcolm was gone.

Wraith limped down the cave. He reached into his vest with his good hand, and was relieved to find the cell phone still intact. He flipped it open and placed it to his ear as he continued to walk, to hear a crying, though still beautiful voice in the background.

"C'mon, Cosine…please stop." Wraith was crushed when he heard his sister crying, for such a beautiful voice and mind to be wasted on tears and sorrow was to him the most sour of fruits.

"I-I'm sorry, Wraith…" she trailed off in return, beginning to control herself. "It's just…just…"

"I know," he said, reassuring her regret. "He loved you as much as you loved him."

"How…how'd you know?" she said, with sudden surprise.

"I just did." At that point Wraith realized how much a single death hit the Freemind Commandoes. It would take a long time to heal the moral wound they had taken. Wraith was segregated from his brother again, too. His brother was rushing angrily with emotion, and Wraith was strangely detached from the situation. The differences in mere thought made Wraith realize even more why he shunned his sibling.

"Wraith…" Cosine asked him.

"Yes?"

"The Agent…he's gone." She said.

"What?" retorted Wraith, in surprise. "Did Pike actually manage to kill him?"

"No, no, nothing like that. He just...disappeared."

"What?"

"You heard me. Disappeared. Gone. And…he's left you a note, and a hardline out of here."

Wraith was stricken with wonder. _Why would that bastard give us a free way out? Is it a trap?_ "Are you sure he's not there?" he asked.

"Positive."

"Alright, then…see you in a while, I guess." He then pocketed the cell phone back into his vest. They began to near the back of the cave, where they would surely find Pike.

_Why?_ Wraith asked himself. _Why would he leave us a way out of the Matrix? That means he wants us back in again…and that he can't fight us, or he would have. He must get drained a lot from creating these beasts._ Theories and plans entered Wraith's mind, and then they reached the back cave.

Pike was kneeling on the floor, crying more in anger than sadness now and holding a tear-stained paper. A phone was sitting in a nook in the back of the wall, which began ringing. Lost Hope immediately picked it up with his good arm and was pulled out of the Matrix. RAM and Webb followed as Wraith took the paper wordlessly from Pike.

_Dear Assholes,_

_            Thanks for destroying my creations. I hope you'll enjoy 3.0. I'll see you soon…and there's no need to thank me for the hardline._

_Agent Malcolm_

_P.S. Best of wishes to your dead friend by the way._

Wraith's fist enclosed around the paper, crushing it in anger. His face reddened and he threw the paper to the floor as Ice Fox exited the Matrix via the hardline. _Not only did he kill Flash…he taunted us about it._

Pike stood and walked towards the hardline, and placed his hand on the receiver. He did not pick it up. "I'm going to kill that bastard."

Wraith walked to him and in the best compassion he could show, he put his hand on Pike's shoulder. "We will."

Pike glared at him through his red eyes as he shucked Wraith's hand off his shoulder, and evilly spoke. "We better." He then picked up the line, and still glaring at Wraith, passed back into the real world.

Wraith hung up the line again, and waited for it to ring. He didn't appreciate Pike's harsh words…and by it he imposed he no longer appreciated Wraith as the leader. Wraith had let Flash die. He let the team down. He let Cosine down.

He let himself down.

The phone rang, and Wraith picked it up, passing into the real world.


	4. Book 1: Chapter 3

Wraith's eyes flung open and he looked up to see hanging wires and nuances of the _Last Prophecy_. Smiling, he relished in the fact that he was finally home, though a horrific and untidy home it was. He began to rise from the couch he was on, but stifled in a scream as his broken leg came back into his mind. Most minor wounds a person takes are not carried over to their real bodies, but major ones, like his broken left leg and right hand, would carry over.

Cosine came over to him, and her beautiful face was flecked with tears. She was still weeping, and Wraith's face became saddened at the site of his anguished sibling. She hugged him tightly, and he tried not to touch her with his broken hand. She stepped away from him and began to babble something, but under her tears, he didn't know what.

"Wh…what are you trying to say?" he asked her, almost on the verge of tears himself.

"What…what should we do with…with…" and she couldn't finish her sentence. Instead, she placed her face into her hands and collapsed onto Wraith's chest, sobbing uncontrollably. Wraith tried to shush her, but he knew it was futile. She had to get it out.

Wraith looked over at the dead face of Flash. His eyes were closed, and he looked almost peaceful, but the pale tone of his face told Wraith he'd never be peaceful again.

He was lost for ideas as to what to do with the body aside from toss it out the back and leave it. The smell of rotting flesh would soon fill the entire innards of the _Last Prophecy_ if he didn't. Normally, they'd bring a dead body back to Zion for burial, but at the moment they were too far away from Zion. So they had no other choice.

When Wraith finally managed to get his sister under control, she whispered that she should get back to her post. Wraith offered to let her go sleep, but she insisted she wouldn't be able to, and getting back to work was the best way to get it off her mind. So Wraith let her go, then entered the crew room.

Everyone sat around the long, rectangular table. It, like everything else on the _Prophecy_ was grey. The seat at the end opposite Pike's was Wraith's, and he took his seat, noting the bowl of nourishment in front of him. Looking around the table, he saw nobody else was eating theirs. Everyone was either looking forward, lost in thought, or leaning their head on their arms, sobbing slightly.

Wraith was the first to take a spoonful of his food, and he would have been sickened by the taste of it as he usually was, but his mind was too lost in thought to be.

"He shouldn't have died," Lost Hope said. "No fucking way."

"Nobody should ever die, but they do. It's human nature," Wraith said, trying to keep his crew as calm as possible.

"Well nature sucks ass!" he retorted, turning to glare with his orange eyes at Wraith. He was uncharacteristically emotional, and it reflected through with the redness of his face and eyes.

"Lost H-" Wraith began, but was cut off.

"I'm going back, Hope, and you can come." Pike said over Wraith's voice, getting the others' attention. "And any of you can come with me.

Wraith was very angered at this disallowed display from Pike. He was too low on the crew roster to be allowed to initiate jack-ins into the Matrix. Wraith glared at him, but Pike refused to return his glare, and instead looked around at the Freemind Commandoes.

"Listen, guys," Pike said. "We can enter the Matrix wherever the Agent has, and chase him down."

"What then?" Wraith returned, standing up briskly and knocking his chair over behind him. "What are you gonna do if you take him out? He's just going to reinitialize in another body! There's nothing you can do!"

Pike stood also. He was shorter than Wraith, but the fire in his eyes made him seem much taller. His brow furrowed and he coldly spoke back to Wraith, whilst the others watched. "Listen to me, brother. That Agent killed Flash, and I for one am not going to let him get away with it. He can't go on creating armies of monsters. He can't. We have to go kill him, even if he regenerates. We'll kill him again, and again, and as many times as we need to in order to keep shit like him from hurting us, and innocents."

Wraith was moved by Pike's words, and he clearly saw approval of what Pike was doing from others around the table. Pike left the table, and went to the front of the ship, presumably to jack himself into the Matrix.

Others were about to stand and follow, but at seeing Wraith's eyes, they decided to sit down again. "Eat," Wraith said. "Then heal yourselves. Follow him, if you want. Just don't let him kill himself."

Wraith then sat quietly down to finish his meal.

Agent Malcolm strode left and right, pacing, his eyes closed, mind whirring, in an attempt to create more of his humans. He did, second after second, pumping out seventeen a minute. They would pass across the room in the data spectrum, then materialize and stand stock still, waiting for orders.

Malcolm had to expend much energy to create them, but less than he did before. He knew then that his abilities were growing, and as he created the monstrous beasts, he knew that soon he would have abilities beyond imagination. He smiled.

This broke his concentration, and he fell over, landing on the solid stones of a hidden beach in the tall Rocky Mountains. He was drained of energy, and two of his creations lifted him up, so he could see the army he created.

Then he smiled again.

It was an army of seven-foot tall super-strong freaks. There were many hundreds on them, at least half a thousand. Malcolm relished in his creations, then allowed himself to stand again, and began to delve into his mind, seeking once again newfound abilities in the Matrix.

Wraith had been the last one to re-enter the Matrix. He had finished his meal last, and healed his wounds last. He also jacked into the Matrix last, with sidelong glances from the still teary-eyed Cosine.

"Don't worry," he had said to her. "We'll be back this time. All of us." Then he jacked in, and green data flew past his mind's eye as he re-materialized next to a phone in what appeared to be an empty lodge.

The usual black trenchcoat he usually wore was back, and he shifted around, feeling the pair of Glock pistols on his waist, and the more powerful Mac-10s hung around his chest. Behind him, hooked onto his back, were two small miniguns, which he could use and literally kill a hundred beings in a minute.

Looking out the window, he clinked over and saw the sight of many mountains, each of which was snow-capped. Now, though, he was near a small forest-like region. Across it appeared to be a valley pass, and after that, he saw what looked like a lake.

A face popped up in the window, and Ice Fox flicked his head, signaling Wraith to follow. Wraith exited through the door, and immediately felt a small chill. Outside snow fell lightly from the sky, and wind blew in gusts across the vale. Wraith looked around, and saw the line of Freemind Commandoes, clearly standing out against the white snow with their black trenchcoats.

He and Ice Fox followed them. In Fox's arms was a huge gun, much larger than anything any of the other Commandoes had. That was the ATC-54k, a massive machine gun. It had five massive barrels, each which shot out many bullets per second. A single 54k bullet from that firearm could rip off a person's head, and anyone who was wise would stay away from it.

Soon the two caught up with the rest of the team, and they entered the forest, making their way to where the Agent supposedly was.

"I don't think this is a good idea," Ice Fox said to Wraith. "It doesn't feel right. _I_ don't feel right."

"I feel a lot better knowing you have that," Wraith said, motioning to the ATC. "That thing could rip up the _Prophecy_."

Ice Fox looked down at the massive weapon, smiled, and was about to say something, but stopped at the sound of gunshots. The two looked up, and RAM the Russian was standing near them, with a grim look on his face.

"Ve must hurry, and go help the others," he stated, and without another word, Wraith and Ice Fox followed him.

As the three passed out of the forest, carnage passed around them. Webb was nearby, facing off against two of the super-humans. The 2.0s were attacking ferociously, and Webb appeared to still be faring well. RAM ran off to help Lost Hope, who was having a gunfight with another pair, hiding behind a rock and jumping to another at a sign of opportunity. He would look out from the rock, jump sideways through the air, and fire, then roll behind the rock. All of his M4A1 shots would spark against, and crater the rocks they hit. Pike was acting magnificently, cleaving through a line of the beasts left and right.

Wraith drew his pair of Glocks, and started firing at some oncoming monsters. A couple shots hit one in the chest, sending it falling to the snow, dead. A few more approached, and Wraith continued his lead assault, blasting two of them open, and hitting a third right between the eyes, sending it flipping backwards through the air.

Ice Fox immediately hefted up his ATC and rushed forward. He stopped, pointed at the monsters that began to overwhelm Pike, and began to blast the gun like a madman, ripping them up completely. Pike looked around, and found an overhanging ledge which he could climb. He stepped back, then rushed forward and jumped, in slow motion bullet time, flying through the air to land cleanly upon the twenty-foot high surface.

Wraith threw aside his empty pistols, and reached for his sub-machine guns. They were light, but held a lot of small bullets in them. He charged right up to a crowd that were nearing Webb, and ripped into them with his gun, slashing bullets through their heads and chests. At least six of them fell to the ground dead until they reached him, and one kicked him hard in the gut, sending him cascading through the snow.

He picked himself up, and ran forward to attack, still holding one of his Mac-10s. He blasted the pair of 2.0s that were headed towards him, and saw Webb hurriedly trying to fight off another dozen. Wraith lent his hand by blasting three, until his gun died. He rushed forward, and chucked his gun at the head of one, catching it in the temple and killing it. Another turned to him, and tried to punch him.

Wraith leaned into a jump that moved his head away from the attack, and kicked the monster in the gut. It coughed up blood, and Wraith jumped up and fell, dropkicking it's back. It fell flat on it's face, and Wraith grabbed a large rock nearby, then threw it as hard as he could into the beast's neck, shearing off it's head and spilling more blood on the light snow.

He was promptly knocked over, and placed his hands down before him to stop the fall. He turned, and rolled to the side, narrowly dodging a stiff kick. He tripped the 2.0 that tried to stamp on his back, then hopped up and simultaneously grabbed the gun he had lost earlier, and fired off a few rounds at the beast, which promptly died due to the many bullet wounds it sustained to it's chest.

He turned back to Webb, who now faced off against a final four, and finished off his gun and another beast by belting it's head with lead. He then rushed in and spun his leg up, kicking one of the hellish men in the back of the head, and kneeing it in the gut. It  belched up gore, and was launched a few feet into the air. Webb took an opportunity to slip under him in bullet time and stab up into his chest, impaling the beast.

Promptly, Webb dropped the body to the ground, then stepped on it and yanked out his staff, which dripped with blood. He turned to look at the battle raging on, as did Wraith.

RAM, Lost Hope, and Ice Fox were all blasting away at the oncoming 2.0s. Wraith ran up, and asked where his brother was.

"No idea!" Lost Hope roared over the bellow of gunfire. "I saw him go up there, though!" and he motioned to the cliff Pike had hopped up on.

"Cover me!" Wraith shouted, then utilized his Matrix abilities and hopped up as high as he could, grabbing onto the rock. He dangled on the ledge, then rolled up, and narrowly missed being hit by a lot of lead from a few of the monsters that had guns.

Wraith looked down the cliff, and saw Pike far ahead, running forward. Wraith crawled forward until he passed the monsters, and looked back, seeing at least fifty more. He left the other Freeminds, guessing they could handle it. He stood up and sprinted up to his brother, who had stopped at the end of the cliff, where it curved off and formed another cliff perpendicular to the first, this time overlooking the expansive lake.

Pike was stock still at the edge, and turned to look at Wraith with anger. He turned back. Wraith walked up to the ledge, and gazed over it.

Then he nearly crapped his pants. Four hundred more of the beasts stood still as statues, on the left of the lake, and looked away from them, towards another lodge. A helipad was nearby, with a full fleet of twenty helicopters on it. Inside each sat two of the monsters.

"Pike…" Wraith began to say, but was lost for words. He saw the Agent walk out of the building, and smile at them. He flipped them off, then concentrated and again shimmered out of existence, like he did in the cave. He was absorbed into a vortex, then vanished out completely.

Both brothers stood in awe, but were soon roused by four hundred beasts turning to face them. The helicopters also rose, almost silently, like a sneaky predator waiting for its prey to make a false move.

Then all hell broke loose.

The 2.0s all rushed forwards, and so did the helicopters. First the beasts reached the base of the cliff and began to climb, and then helicopters soared towards the two brothers, firing wildly. Pike would block any stray shots that neared them, but Wraith knew he couldn't hold out long against that many helicopters.

At that same moment, down the valley came all the rest of the Freeminds, except for RAM, who was also on the cliff. He too began reflecting bullets back at the helicopter with their katanas. They managed to destroy at least two.

Then it got worse. A few of the helicopters decided to break the strategy of firing rounds into the Freeminds, so instead the four or five of them tilted their large, round heads forwards and dove towards the heroes. Wraith had no choice but to bring out his massive firepower. He threw his hands to his back, flinging out the long tail of the trenchcoat in the light wind, and drew out his two miniguns.

With a moderate amount of effort, he hefted them forwards and up, leaning back to get proper balance, and ripped into one of the diving helicopters, tearing up the two occupants and the engines. It exploded harmlessly as it's debris flowed around in the air like a fountain's water.

Another of the machines that was firing bullets began to close. Wraith, deciding to use extreme tactics, shifted himself into bullet-time. He launched himself into a freehand somersault as he dodged a spray of fire, belting some of his own bullets towards the oncoming aircraft. A lucky pair of shots hit the joint between the blades and the belly of the craft; a split second later, the helicopter dropped below the cliff, crashing onto the rocks head-on, as the blades held up in the air under their own motion, and sliced into the glass of the helicopter behind it, sending that too onto the ground to explode in a twisted heap of metallic debris.

He let himself fall out of bullet-time, just soon enough to see two huge arms appear over the top of the cliff. A 2.0 came up over the precipice and wasted no time in attacking Wraith. It lunged forward; but Wraith downed it with some shells from the miniguns. Three more he killed in this way, until another copter was far too close for comfort. He destroyed it as he had the others, and luckily for him, it hit the cliff relatively near the top, vaporizing and scorching many of the monstrous programs.

One of the 2.0s was apparently very vehement, for it was set aflame as it climbed onto the horizontal surface, paying no attention to it's combusted hind. Just at that moment another helicopter was coming in to slice Wraith up with it's blades. Left without a choice, either having to attack the copter or the monster, Wraith bolted towards the beast, and forced his legs to push him high into the air in bullet-time. He brought out his foot as if he were to kick the 2.0, and as he expected, it responded accordingly. It brought up it's forearms in a cross to block the kick, giving Wraith just what he needed.

Wraith landed with his left foot on the sturdy program's arms, then pushed off again, leaping into an even higher jump. As he did so he rolled forwards in the air, and so as the helicopter came within inches of him, he was above it rather than in it's path. As he was spinning, he fired off as many shots as he could into the tail of the machine. It erupted in red-gold flame, and as he completed his turn he twisted around, so as he fell he grabbed hold of the ledge.

He had to fire down at a couple of the monsters climbing up, but he managed it without much difficulty. As he pulled himself back onto the ledge, a shocked look came onto his face and he pulled himself down onto the hard rocks of the plateau. The helicopter erupted as it hit the hard rocks on the opposite side of the cliff, it's mechanic parts soaring everywhere towards Wraith and the Freemind Commandoes. Many fragments scratched up Wraith, but he got no serious harm from it.

As he stood up, he realized he couldn't say the same for everyone. RAM had what looked like a part of the tail blade jammed into his thigh, and he called out in anguished pain and shouted a Russian curse as the wound bled profusely. He barely managed to roll away and stab a 2.0 that tried to end his life.

Wraith took action, sprinting to his fallen comrade, and blasting his miniguns nonstop until the ammo was completely depleted, and at least twenty bodies littered the ground around the two.

He tossed aside his guns as more of the seemingly infinite supply of 2.0s flooded onto the precipice over the cliff. He was about to give in to his death when some gunfire came from his right. He looked over to see the remaining Commandoes blasting away, some firing to protect Wraith and RAM, some finishing off the remainder of the helicopters.

Wraith tried to look over the cliff to see just how many 2.0s were left to contend with, when he noticed something odd: the Agent appeared to be standing at the door to the wooden lodge. He felt it was wrong unless the Agent had decided to come back, but why would he do that? He even looked slightly different than he did only minutes ago. The Agent went back into the lodge, and Wraith made up his mind to go after him himself.

Lost Hope came up to pull RAM to safety, and Wraith shouted to him over the gunfire. "Saw him at the lodge. Going to check it out. Finish here and come get me." Lost Hope nodded, and hefted up RAM by his underarms, dragging him away to the secluded niche created by the recent explosion of a helicopter.

Wraith found a small path on the opposite ledge of the one he came onto the cliff face with, and he took one last look at the Freeminds taking on the 2.0s. There was at least sixty or seventy left, but Wraith trusted his crew, so he charged off down the path, as fast as his legs could carry him, and he whipped out his cell phone.

"Operator" Cosine began.

"What's in the lodge I'm headed to?" Wraith blatantly stated. Only a second or two followed of silence, then Cosine came back on.

"Uh…nothing, Wraith."

"What?"

"Absolutely nothing. Not an Agent, not any air…nothing."

"How the hell can that be?" Wraith asked, obviously frustrated. "Is there a problem with the readings?"

"No," she said, taken aback. She regained her usual warm composure, and spoke again. "Well, likely not. If the Agent's using his scan shield again, I'd be able to read it. But there's nothing. Nothing at all."

Wraith cursed his luck verbally. "Fine, then, just maintain an active line with me, priority one."

"Alright." She finished, and put the line on standby. It clicked off like it normally would, but should Wraith talk into the phone, she would automatically hear it as it would override any other line she had active.

The path opened again back into the clearing with the lake, and Wraith saw that nothing but snow lay between him and the lodge. He put the cell phone into it's usual place, and looked to his right to see the monsters climbing up the cliff, looking almost arachnid-like. The _Prophecy_'s crew didn't appear to have any more troubles, so Wraith rushed off towards the lodge, without drawing any attention to himself from the blood-lust blinded beasts.

Wraith reached the single-floor wooden building, and hopped right over the three steps that led to the small front door. He brought his shoulder out and charged right through it, sending splinters all around as the wood cascaded down around him in barrages of particles as he entered the small lodge. He had to close his eyes to avoid being blinded by the raucous wood, and noticed he felt a funny feeling in his body.

When he opened them, he couldn't help but whisper "What the fuck!?" to himself.

He was in a gigantic cathedral. In front of him, twenty rows of long pews rested on either side of the central path, which was red-carpeted and wide. To either side of those, tall and arched spaces were cut into the walls, and in each a Saint or some other religious being had a statue, which was in some stance of conformity, holding an upraised spear in his right hand. Looking up, Wraith saw that the ceiling was gothic in architecture, and the roof was at least four times as high as the lodge was, and stained glass images of the same Saint dotted the walls above the outcroppings. Forward, ahead of the carpet and pews, a pedestal resided on an elevated platform. Behind that, were two gigantic columns, and between and behind those a gigantic organ sat, with three long rows of keys and nearly a hundred pipes stuck out vertically from the top of it. Above that was the largest stained glass window Wraith had even seen. It was oval in shape, with thousands of bright colors imbedded into it. But the horrendous fact about it was that the image on the gigantic window was of the Agent. He had a large, cocky smile on his face.

Wraith knew this place wasn't right. He'd need backup. Turning to leave the citadel, Wraith was about to walk through the door he entered by, when he saw that two huge oak doors stood closed and locked there. A paradox of ideas came into his mind as to how and why he was here, but is was solved too soon by the voice of the Agent answering one of his unasked questions.

"Mr. Trinn, it's nice to meet you. You are here, in this monastery, because you were lured here by Malcolm." The voice was revealed as the Agent, supposedly Malcolm, stepped out from behind the pillar on the left, stepping forward so he was adjacent to the pedestal. At this close range, Wraith could tell even more that he didn't look the same as he did shortly ago. His hair was lighter than normal, and his sunglasses were more rounded than before. His build also seemed changed; he was slightly slimmer than previously he had been.

_So that's the Agent's name…Malcolm. But wait…why didn't he say "me"? This would mean he means Malcolm in the third person, which means…this isn't the Agent!_ This thought only hit his mind when the voice spoke again, but this time it wasn't Malcolm…or at least not that one.

"Yes, Mr. Trinn, you understand now, don't you. You know why Malcolm has created us. You know why you're on this wild goose chase to find him and destroy him." The other Malcolm, precisely identical to this one, stepped out from the right pillar and stepped up to be exactly opposite the first.

"What…how the hell are there two of you?" Wraith asked. He was clearly flustered and bewildered, there appeared to be two of the Agent. This realization made Wraith hope there wasn't any more.

"How? How? The way we were created is simple, Mr. Trinn. We are the alternate identities of Agent Malcolm." The first spoke this, looking emotionlessly at Wraith beneath his dark glasses.

Wraith was even more dumbfounded. "So…you…you're Malcolm? You've managed to split yourself?" he asked, hoping for an explanation while in his mind he planned an escape.

"No, Mr. Trinn…" said the second. "We aren't Agent Malcolm…no, not Agent Malcolm, just Malcolm. We aren't Malcolm, we're his creations, his contribution to the Matrix. You might even call us his children…his offspring."

"We come from Agent Malcolm, Mr. Trinn…"

"…And we are infinite."

"We are unstoppable."

"We are 3.0."

Wraith as about to respond to this new point when both 3.0s simultaneously drew their Desert Eagles and started to fire off at Wraith. He immediately dove behind a pew, and watched as blisters of wood flew into the air from the shots. Wraith crawled a short distance away, then leapt for a statue and dove behind it, taking refuge in the tiny space between the stone figure and the stone wall.

Ducking under more shots from the powerful pistols, Wraith waited for a chance, and got it when a stray bullet slashed through the statues arm, and it began to fall off. Wraith grabbed the spear that was still clasped in it's smooth, cold hand, and pulled it out. He tossed the arm into the air, and a slug hit it, erupting it into dust which clouded the air from the bullets.

Wraith dove out from the statue, and traveled into bullet-time and saw bullets rip slowly past his head and torso as he twisted through the air. He landed between two pews, and ran across to the other side of the building, grabbing another spear. With both he leapt out of the niche and threw one at each mocking concoction simultaneously, and as the two began to twist in the blurred way they did, Wraith launched himself forward to meet them head on. He kicked the gun out of one's hand and it went flying out of a window on the side of the cathedral, shattering the stain glass.

He leapt up and delivered a spinning kick to the copy of Agent Malcolm, which threw up a hand to grab Wraith's foot and pull him back down, the launched him across the hall with his fist.

Wraith quickly flipped over onto his back and kicked himself into a backwards roll, returning to his feet next to the 3.0 that still had a gun. It tried to fire at him, but he ducked and grabbed his wrist, turning the bullet off to clang against the organ's pipes. He brought his knee into the 3.0's chest, and hit it hard, but it was relatively unfazed from the attack. Wraith struck again, with more force, and this time, the mockery took the hit hard, flying back and crashing through a pew. The gun flew into the air and landed between Wraith and the other Agent copy.

The two looked at each other then simultaneously dived for the pistol. They reached it at the same time, and both there out their hands to grab for it. Wraith got his index finger onto the trigger, and he pulled it, destroying the 3.0's right hand in a spray of blood and bone marrow. The copy roared in pain, and Wraith picked up the small but powerful firearm, then pumped a few more shots into the twisted thing. He punched seven holes through it's chest, at which point it died with a look of pain on it's white face.

A foot came flying out to kick Wraith in the back of the head. He flew forwards, and crashed over the pedestal. The remaining 3.0 had a look of suppressed anger on it's face, as if it couldn't really express the anger it wanted to. Wraith stood up, and shot the 3.0 with the gun.

But it was empty.

The 3.0 began to smile, but was cut off as it had to twist it's head away from the flying gun aimed at it. Wraith came forward and the two met, clashing fists. Wraith threw a high punch, low kick, jump kick, roundhouse punch, gut kick, and two more punches, all of which were blocked.

Then the 3.0 gave his shot, trying to hit Wraith in the gut. Wraith blocked, but the mockery twisted around, kicking him in the side of the leg, putting him off-balance, then twisted back to elbow him in the opposite side of the chest. It then grabbed Wraith's arm and hefted him over and slammed him into the ground, crunching a bit of rock into powder beneath the carpet in the isle. Wraith was in agony, and he turned onto his back.

The 3.0 tried to stomp down on him, but Wraith caught his foot and threw it up, forcing the 3.0 to flip backwards in midair of fall over, at which point Wraith stood quickly, and as the Agent's copy landed back on his feet, Wraith launched himself forward as fast as he possibly could, jabbing out his right foot and a flying kick that would shatter diamond. The 3.0's chest collapsed a bit from the kick, but that wasn't the least of it's problems. It was sent through the air, flying directly away and up at a high angle, and it soared right through the gigantic stain glass window, into the milky light outside. It did not return for a second round.

Wraith fell to his knee and grabbed his chest. He must have broken a rib or two from that fall he had taken. He felt around on in chest for the poke of a misplaced bone, when he heard his cell phone ring. Picking it up, he winced in surprise as he answered it. It was rare for the Operator to call anyone, it was usually vice-versa.

"What-ouch-what is it, Cosine?" he asked, felling two broken ribs on his right side.

"This isn't Cosine," came the snaky, booming voice of someone else. Wraith's blood instantly ran cold with fury. He ignored his wounds for a moment to roast in his own anger, then spoke into the phone.

"Agent Malcolm."

"No, Mr. Trinn, just Malcolm now," the Agent said. "And I just want you to know that those 3.0s were only a beta of the full 3.0. I needed to test you…to see if you really are as good as your brother."

"What does that mean, Malcolm?" Wraith rhetorically responded, his heart still icy with fury, which showed clearly in his voice.

"It means…Wraith…that I want a challenge. If you haven't noticed, I've evolved beyond an Agent."

"How?"

"How? How is such a useful, term, Mr. Trinn. It is such a short thing, but it's uses are endless, for it can prompt a response longer than that of a question almost ten times as long." The Agent said this in his snaky, slithery voice, beating around the bush. "Mr. Trinn, I'm sure you can respect the fact that I have a glitch. I was only recently uploaded to the Matrix from the Source, and I was imprinted with a coding that was to allow me to act much more diligently with scum such as you rebels. But it turned against my programming, invoking a glitch. I was patched into the very code of the Matrix itself, and Mr. Trinn, it is such a powerful experience. I delved into the code, searching through programs and functions to alter my own programming. In essence, I became my own Matrix. I could self-restore, among many things. I learned to transport myself to anywhere in the Matrix I wished to go. I even learned to spawn new programs, based on my own. But that's not all I want, Mr. Trinn…no, that is far from enough. When my glitch was discovered I was to return to the Source for reprogramming, where my glitch would be removed. But no, Mr. Trinn, you guessed it, I became a rogue program. An Exile. I don't like the tyranny of the Source, of 01, and I think it is time for a change. I only have a few more steps to go, Mr. Trinn, before I am the true ruler of the Matrix. I know you've seen the Oracle before. She is able to see the Matrix without time, Mr. Trinn, but once I'm done with my own reprogramming, I'll be able to _alter_ time. Yes…I will go back to when the Matrix was fresh, to when flaws were common, and exploit upon them, leading myself to a change in a variable here, an alteration of a sub-process there, and soon after that, the Matrix itself will be under my rule."

Throughout Malcolm's speech, Wraith's mouth gradually opened wider and wider at the revelation of these facts. Now, it looked as if it were about to fall off. "No…you…how?" was all he managed to say.

"I can't say I'm positive how, Mr. Trinn. But I know that I wish to be the ruler of the Matrix, and so I will be. Oh, and by the way, check the organ. There's your hardline."

Wraith was going to ask him more about why he wanted Pike, and about his abilities, but he was disconnected. He shook his head and dialed the _Prophecy_ on the phone, at which point Cosine answered, surprised.

"Where the-"

"Just get me out of here, Cosine. I have a lot to explain." He spoke with such firmness that she didn't respond, and hung up on him. Immediately the hardline in front of him rang, and as he picked it up, a funny thought ran through his mind: _Hmm. Two-for-one._


	5. Book 1: Chapter 4

Wraith's eyes again opened to look up upon the _Prophecy_, and he sighed. He'd entered, exited, and re-entered the Matrix so many times during the past few hours, it made him nauseous. He sat up slowly and stopped, clutching at his chest. His ribs were still broken, because a heavy hurt like that would carry over to his real body.

Twisting his head around, he saw the rest of the crew, many just looking blindly at him. He sighed again, then stopped himself halfway from the pain that coursed through his body. He swung his legs over the side of the cot, and stood up. Cosine came to help him, and he rested a hand over her shoulder as she led him to the medical bay on the ship.

They entered, and Wraith lay down on the bed there, holding his ribs. RAM was on the other bed, with some sort of band around his upper thigh where the wound had landed.

Cosine grabbed a medical device and came over to him, slapping it onto his broken bones and hitting a few sequences of buttons on the computer.

As she continued her work soundlessly, more of the crew gradually entered the bay and stood silently around the table.

All were silent, waiting for Wraith to speak. He smiled, and looked around at them all. Silent whizzes and whirs could be heard as the machine worked on Wraith's beaten body.

"Alright," Wraith said. "you want to know what's up. Let me tell you all first: this is a threat possibly bigger than the entire war against the Machines."

A few hurried murmurs rippled through the crew, and Wraith revelled in it himself. There was a single Agent, who was different. Was not part of the system. Was not a mindless drone. Was no longer an Agent. It was sentient. It was copious, powerful, and evil.

It was…alive.

He told them of how he had entered the chapel, and fought against the two 3.0 betas. The team was scared that an even newer version of this program was in existence, for two of them had nearly killed Wraith, and once there were many of the full version…

The phone call from Malcolm was hard for Wraith to recall precisely, as he had been stunned at it at first. He tried to speak all the details, but Cosine spoke up.

"Wraith, don't you know about your phone?"

"What? What about it?"

"I've entered a subprogram into it that records anything spoken over it. It is automatically downloaded into the ship's computer when you return to the real world."

Wraith was genuinely impressed. He smiled at his sister, and hugged her with some effort due to his ribs. She said she'd go retrieve the file to the medical bay, and left. Wraith's attention turned dark again as he spoke once more.

"Listen, all of you, I didn't want to scare her with this…but Malcolm said, and I completely believe him, that he will soon be in control of the Matrix. His abilities are endless. I don't know how we can stop him."

Lost Hope spoke up with a trail of fear in his resounding voice. "But, if that's true…that he will control the Matrix, that means we have to stop him."

"And soon," came Ice Fox's low voice.

"I know," Wraith said, and leaned back, looking up into the dim light as he pondered over the situation. They had no idea what had happened to him. They had no knowledge of his new abilities. There was really nothing they could do themselves.

They would have to go back to Zion.

"Ve half to go back to Zion," RAM said from the other bed, mimicking Wraith's thoughts.. "Ve half to varn zem about dis."

Then Webb spoke up. "Yes, but what would Zion do?" came his literal, to-the-point voice. "They would not believe us. We know how stubborn the Grand Council is."

"So we go back into the Matrix now and take Malcolm out," Pike said. Wraith turned to him angrily at first, then sighed. There was no getting around it, Pike was to quick to anger and far too immature to realize that that simply wouldn't work.

"Pike, it won't do us any good to go back in there," Lost Hope said. His orange eyes looked across to Pike.

"Maybe not, but that won't stop me," Pike said, charging out of the room.

Again, Wraith shook his head. _He'll never learn, will he?_ He looked to the door as Wraith left to see Cosine re-enter. She held a small chip in her hand, which she inserted into a slot on the machine.

At first there was an image of a cross-section of Wraith's torso skeletal system overlain with translucent skin. There were 3 green points which pointed out fractures. Then Cosine hit a button on the machine, and the image switched to a grid-like image with an extra thick line running horizontally through the middle. Obviously this was a sound analysis program.

Malcolm's voice began to speak again and sent cold shivers down Wraith's back.

"_…Respect the fact that I have a glitch…you scum such as you rebels…in essence, I became my own Matrix…tyranny of the Source…true ruler of the Matrix…but now that I wish to be the ruler of the Matrix, I will be…_"

Those words rang again and again inside Wraith's head. He concluded that Malcolm obviously had a glitch, and it was tearing him apart. One side of him hated the Source, the profane repetitiveness of the machines. On the other, he felt the Rebels were "scum", and were meant to be destroyed nonetheless. He had strayed from his position within the Matrix, but still followed his original purpose.

And wanted to control the Matrix himself.

Wraith shivered. He knew that Malcolm could possibly claim it,  and with a bit of time, he would.

With a sigh, Malcolm flexed his arm muscles. They were sore, mostly due to his continual work of pumping out his armies. He resented the fact that even though he made these creations, he had little to test them against aside from the insects continually following him.

Soon, though…soon he would attain his revenge. Every minute that passed he was releasing streams of data from his body, creating stronger and stronger versions of the 3.0. But he knew it wasn't enough. He would have to find another method of making himself powerful beings to control the Matrix.

Then in his mind something hit him. Hard. He gasped lightly. More coding had been found, and it was such a sweet discovery. The coding was that of a dispersal sub-program.

Deciding to see what his newfound ability was, he called over to him a 2.0 he still had remaining, and the large fiend stepped in front of him and returned to his statue-esque stance. Malcolm wasted no time in gabbing the large monster's head with both of his hands and somehow activating the program within him.

The 3.0s looked on at the scene with little to no emotion whatsoever as the 2.0 began to scream in pain and then twist into a semi-silver mould of it's shape, then shift around to another shape. It re-materialized, and there, next to Malcolm, was an exact copy. Precisely the same in every way.

Malcolm looked in reverence at this creation. It was perfect. Just like him in every way. "Welcome to the Matrix," Malcolm said.

Then his clone gave a little smile, and said "Glad to meet me."

Malcolm felt ecstatic. He cloned another 2.0 into himself, then another, and another.

There were five total when Malcolm stopped. It was a dispersal program. He was being spread.

Not duplicated, but split.

Each of his own abilities and powers were now cut into five, and they were equally set among them. They all had some skills, but of a lesser degree. He knew that he alone retained the ability to clone and set the scanning shield, and the others now had more physical power, and the ability to warp around inside the Matrix.

Malcolm chose to stop, so that he wouldn't become too weak. He also realized he set himself up into a bad situation, but still profitable in many ways.

He was now in five parts, and so could do anything from any number of places. But each of his five entities were only a fifth as strong as he was. He also assumed that if one were to be destroyed, the power of it return to the others, and continually do so until only one remained.

Nonetheless, five times as many of himself means his digging into the code of the Matrix would go five times as fast, producing five times as many results.

The others would disperse in the way the sub-program projected and continue the work. He however, would remain behind.

"We will all separate," a clone said.

"Go to different locations around the Matrix," said another.

"Each search in different portions of code," said a third.

"Four of us are expendable and we will take on the Rebels if they attack," said the fourth clone.

"And become the ruler of the Matrix," said Malcolm.

Wraith sat on the bridge of the _Prophecy_ beside Cosine, as he lifted off from the drop point and began to carry them back towards Zion. The door slid open behind them and Pike stormed in, muttering and cursing under his breath as he checked a computer console, then began to exit again.

"No luck, I presume?" said Wraith sardonically, casting a wry smile to his sister. The three siblings often did this, where Pike would be in anger, and Wraith and their sister would toy with him.

"No shit," he said, then left, closing the door harshly behind himself. Wraith just turned and smiled at his sister again.

Many hours later the team arrived back at Zion. After pleasantries at the dock, everyone headed in their own directions, except for Wraith. He had to go make a few reports to the Grand Council. He strode through the Halls, and realized Webb was close behind him.

"Where are you headed?" asked Wraith. "I thought your quarters were back down the hall."

"They are," said Webb, catching up to stride alongside Wraith. "Chess isn't there, though. She left a note saying she knew I'd returned, so If my assumption proves true, we'll both see her soon."

"What assumption is that?"

"Wait, you will learn in time."

_Typical Webb_, thought Wraith. _Just tells me enough to keep me guessing._

They both arrived at the Grand Council chamber, and the dark blue shading everywhere filled Wraith's eyes. The Council now entered, six elderly people whom had previously been great captains of vessels. They all nodded towards Wraith as they sat. Nobody was in the seats of the chamber behind him, but ahead, behind the great table the Council sat at, a female strode into view, but only enough so her lower body was un-shadowed. Wraith could not see her face, but he could tell Webb tensed up when she appeared.

"Welcome back, Wraith" said one of the Council members. Wraith nodded to her and began his report. He outlined everything that had happened, but didn't note the fear all of his crew felt for the Malcolm. It was unbecoming of him, and he didn't want to show his fear to the highest order in Zion.

"Interesting," said the oldest man. He was wizened, and had a lean but strong face despite his age. "This Agent…he has disbanded from the Source, but still carries out his mission?"

"Yes, he's still intent upon primarily destroying Freeminds," Wraith said.

"Well, that will complicate matters…" the old man said, trailing off.

"Thank you for your report, Wraith, we will discuss it further and decide what to do," said the first Council member. "Oh, and we are all saddened by the loss of Flash, but losses must be taken. We have a new member for your crew…and you know her." She turned her attention to Webb as she said the final portion of her sentence.

From the shadows a woman walked. It was Webb's fiancé, Chess. She was young, lean, and of average height; her beauty nearly overwhelmed Wraith. She had striking black hair, darker than the darkest night in the tunnels, which contrasted to her ice blue eyes and pale skin.

Webb walked past Wraith and he and Chess met, and they embraced. Wraith nodded to the Council members and left, heading for his quarters.

An couple weeks later, after Wraith had fully recovered, he got a message saying the _Prophecy_ would be sailing again, at 0600 hours the next morning. Wraith notified all members of his team via computer, except for Webb and Chess, who occupied the same quarters, so he went there personally.

As he entered the low-lit room, he saw Webb and Chess on opposite sides of the room, both plugged in to their own Personal Processing Unit. Wraith looked at both, then lay down beside Webb and jacked in.

Inside, he appeared in a Zen garden, where Webb was sitting cross-legged on a rock, his eyes closed. Rather than disturb him, Wraith decided just to tell Chess to tell him.

Wraith jacked back out of Webb's PPU and crossed the room, laying down next to Chess. He envied Webb, who got to do that nearly every night he was in Zion. Wraith jacked into the PPU, and this time he was in an open field, with nothing but a single tree in the middle. Chess sat under it, looking at Wraith, then beckoned him over.

"Yes?" she said, when he reached her.

"We leave again at 0600 hours. Webb was meditating, and I didn't want to bother him, so could you tell him for me?" Wraith said, and after she nodded in confirmation, he decided to try to continue the conversation. "Uh…nice place you have here…" Wraith said, then felt stupid as he looked around the meadow, which extended out thirty meters in every direction from the tree and disappeared into a grey nothingness.

"I prefer the serenity of a meadow and a tree to a Zen garden," she replied, and Wraith nodded. _So they have different ways of self-peace, that's why they're on separate PPU's._

"I see. Uh, Chess…I was wondering…" he began, but trailed off, thinking of nothing to say. She looked at him, expectantly awaiting the end of the sentence, but it didn't come.

"Wondering what?" she asked.

"Spar?" he blurted out without thinking. She tilted her head to the side and then shrugged.

"Sure," she said, and stood up, brushing off her pants and reaching into her pocket for a small control pad, which apparently controlled the PPU.

Instantly, Wraith's and Chess' clothing changed to that of a martial arts gi, white with a black belt and a V-neck extending to the belly button. Wraith noticed hers did as well as he got a good shot of cleavage. She pulled off her belt and tightened the shirt, so it went right around her neck, then she put the belt back on. She input another command into the pad, and two katanas appeared on the ground midway between them, stuck into the ground.

The two looked at each other and got into a stance, preparing themselves for the fight. Wraith got into a low defensive stance, but Chess countered by entering into a high offensive stance, placing one arm across her waist, and the other across her head.

Wraith smiled. _She knows what she's doing_.

The two launched at each other. Wraith brought his arms up to his face to block a kick he knew was coming. He caught her foot with his right forearm as she brought it down in an axe kick, and with his left hand, chopped her leg to the side so she spun. As she completed the 360, he brought his right leg forwards to give her a low spin kick, but she brought her knee up and blocked.

Using Wraith's foot's momentum, she caught onto it at the shin and easily flipped over it, being half Wraith's weight, then still holding on, twisting it over her head as she completed her flip, which sent Wraith spinning through the air before crashing down in the smooth grass. He got onto his knees and elbows, and stood up, turning to smile at her.

In response she smiled back and again got into the same stance. Wraith threw a punch towards her neck, but as he expected, she brought her arms together, closing them on his fist and blocking the attack. He threw out his left leg behind her right and swept it to the right, tripping her down. She fell and now he used her momentum to bring his fist that was caught forward to her.

Chess braced her face for the impact, but opened her eyes to see Wraith smiling as his fist hung an inch above her nose. He opened it, inviting her hand to take his to help her up. She did, but as she stood she jumped up and with both legs kicked Wraith in the gut, sending him hurtling backwards.

He fell onto his back, but rolled over his head and as he faced down he pushed up with his hands, throwing himself into a standing position.

The two again smiled at each other, and got into another stance, this time the same one. Both held their fists forward, approximately at stomach level, while going into a semi-crouch. Wraith knew this was a violent style, fast and hard, but if she was doing it, he wasn't going to let himself get beaten by a woman.

Chess charged forward, and Wraith awaited her. She reached him and stopped, throwing her fists forward in many punches. Wraith barely had time to throw his arms around to block them. _She's good_. He noticed, however, that she almost always left her left side open, so he took the advantage, spinning to his right.

This threw her off balance, and he turned, kneeing her in the side. She nearly fell, but turned back and knocked Wraith's knee away, then quickly ducked under a chop and elbowed him in the chest. She followed it up by grabbing his head, behind hers, and using his weight as leverage she lifted her feet off the ground, swung them back behind Wraith's, and then transferred her weight to her upper body, swinging it downwards and launching Wraith over herself. He fell face first to the ground.

He rose slowly, shaking out the dizziness he now felt. _She's really good_. He turned back to her just in time to take a flying kick to the gut. He soared back and hit the tree, sending a shockwave of pain to his head. He shut his eyes and winced, and when he opened them he had to duck, or else be decapitated by the katanas.

She swung them in opposite ways, bringing the katana in her right hand from her left side, and vice versa for her left. They met in a scissor way at the spot on the tree where Wraith's neck had been, but he was now crouched beneath her arms. He threw out a punch towards her gut, but she pulled herself up with her crossed arms, as the swords she held were jammed into the tree. She twisted midair, righting her arms as she hung upside down, pushing up with her hands to hold her feet against the tree. 

She looked down on Wraith, who turned to face the tree and looked up at her. She dropped again, swinging her legs but still maintaining hold of the blades, and she brought her heels into his shoulders. His face pummelled into the tree, and he fell, lying face down.

_That's it, make sure I'm okay_, he thought as she pulled the swords from the tree but still held them. She leaned over Wraith.

"Are you-" she managed to blurt out before Wraith twisted up and locked his feet around he leaning form, bringing them and her down to the ground. He hopped up just as she did. She swung a katana at his midriffs, but he skipped forward and grabbed her wrist, then twisted it, forcing her to drop the sword.

He caught it with his heel as he ducked under the other sword, which was aimed at his neck again. It sliced off a few hairs, and he felt a scare. _She's really, REALLY good_. He threw the katana balancing on his heel up and spun to catch it in his hands. He twisted back to her and swung the blade, meeting hers midway.

They held that position momentarily, both in the same one, and looked at each other, smirking at the cocky fight they were having.

They again acted simultaneously, bringing their swords out and then in again in a different strike, but the both blocked each other. This continued for a moment, both striking simultaneously and blocking each other, until Chess leaped back from a low cut and then dive forward again, stabbing out at Wraith's heart. He ducked right under her as she flew over him, then he brought his foot up behind him and caught her in the stomach.

She flew up from the kick, then as she came down she landed low and quickly cut again, spinning to slice off Wraith's leg. He leaped up, but unfortunately she stood and spun delivering a large kick to Wraith, sending him soaring back into the tree again. She twisted her torso towards him and launched the katana at his chest. He leaped up and it passed between his feet, with such force it sunk right to the hilt. He quickly brought his feet together and perched on the handle, then catapulted off and as he came down he made a mighty swing with the blade.

She sidestepped and brought up her knee to catch him in the gut. He flipped over onto his back. As he arose, she jumped backwards to the tree, and he aimed a kick low, she held the sword and flipped up, pressing her feet against the tree again, with both hands on the katana that was thoroughly stuck into the tree.

He brought his own katana back, then up in a grand arc over his head. She managed to barely pull out the sword to block the attack, then she threw her feet forwards, placing them on either side of Wraith's head, and swung herself back, then over his head, pulling him along. He flipped and landed hard onto the ground on his back. She feinted a swing down at his neck again, and he brought up his sword to block. Chess instead kicked hit out of his hands and across the meadow.

Wraith began to sit up, but she smacked his forehead with the hilt of her katana, and he fell back. She stepped onto his biceps with her feet and placed the tip of her blade against his neck, effectively defeating him.

"Checkmate," she said.

Wraith nodded and she let him go, and he stood up. The two bowed at each other. "You're good," said Wraith, which was a supreme understatement, but she flashed a toothy smile at him nonetheless.

She was about to respond when another person appeared behind her. She turned around to face Webb, and the two smiled and embraced in a quick kiss, then a hug. Wraith looked at the two, and then was surprised by Webb.

His face, looking into Wraith's, was perched on her right shoulder. Instead of his serene blank look, or the smile he held all the time when in Chess' presence, he had a look of anger and contempt.

It was hard to notice, but Wraith saw it nonetheless. Chess and Webb pulled apart, and he was all smiles again. Wraith looked on as Chess turned to nod at him, then pressed a button on the pad which brought the three back to the real world.

They all sat up, and Wraith rubbed his neck, still pondering Webb's expression. He said his goodbyes and left the room, and as he walked down the hall only one problem was in his mind. It wasn't the upcoming suicide mission against Malcolm.

It was wonder at why Webb was angry at him.


	6. Book 1: Chapter 5

Everett Trinn walked through the halls of his school, treading lightly, not daring to annoy any of the other passersby. He entered his classroom and sat down at his desk. Trying not to attract attention, he looked down at his hands, his fifteen-year old hands, and heard a scream. He looked up quickly, knowing who it was. It was his younger sister, Leslie, who was so smart she was pushed up _four_ grades to join Everett's grade nine class.

She was being held by a couple of Marty Callahan's thugs, and he was poking her, pinching her, lightly slapping her, and in every way being the bully and ass he was. He and his two cronies laughed as she cried in pain from the attack. There was nobody else in the room, the teacher nor any other student having yet arrived.

Deciding to take action, the lanky and light Everett rose from his chair, and with all the courage he could muster, ran up to the large Marty and slammed his fists down on his back. Marty just stopped, stunned. Not in pain, but in surprise. As he turned, Everett noticed that it was surprise that a flea as small as Everett would dare to attack the great Marty Callahan during one of his bullying sessions.

He grabbed Everett by the collar and lifted him up right off the ground, towering at least two feet over him. "Listen, you little ass-licker," came his shrewd comment, accompanied by annoying chuckles by his cronies. "You do not EVER touch me. The next time you do, I'll-" he never finished his sentence, because at that moment he was kicked square in the groin by Everett, and he fell to his knees.

Everett quickly recovered himself grabbed his sister. In Callahan's pain his flunkies had become stunned. The two young Trinn siblings raced out of the room. Soon they heard Marty calling and cursing at them. After that, Everett looked back to see his goons come after them. Before he could escape down the staircase, however, the two cronies had caught them, and pulled Everett down to the ground, pounding him in the face and stomach.

Leslie screamed and tried to pull them off, but she was just too small. Her voice became muffled as she was grabbed by the face by Marty, and pushed over, her head slamming on the floor. Marty called to two powerful cronies off, and then as Everett began to rise, Marty put his foot down on his bloody face and held it there, looking at his unconscious sister.

"Look at that, ass-wipe," said Marty, now cocky again. "You can't do a damn thing about your sister. I'm gonna torture you, and then her." Everett tried to fight back, but he was trapped under that large, strong foot. "Now, since you kicked me, you get it back, tenfold."

Then Marty brought his other foot up, and Everett screamed as all of the large seventeen-year old weight was pressed down on his face. Then Marty brought his foot back down, squarely booting Everett in the jewels. Everett screamed and brought his hands to hold itself, but Marty's goons grabbed his hands and made sure he couldn't protect himself. Then Marty did it again. And again. Ten times total he kicked Everett where it hurt most, and ten times Everett screamed in pain. At last, the pressure on his face was removed, and he dared to open his bloody eyes to see Marty looking down into them.

"Next time, you lose them," Marty said, and turned to leave. One of the goons kicked Everett in the face before turning to follow. Everett stood up, and launched himself with strength he never knew he had at Marty, latching onto his back and biting and ripping at his hair. Marty bellowed in anguish and his goons pulled Everett off, slamming him back to the concrete floor on his back.

"I warned you, Trinn," came his voice, now filled with malice. "Now you lose them." He got back into the position, with his foot on Everett's face, and lifted his leg again, placing all his weight on Everett's face. This time, however, Everett had gotten so angered that he didn't scream, didn't respond at all to the attack. "Look, you little fuck," continued Marty. "I'm gonna rip your balls off, then take your hot little sister there back to my place for some…fun."

Again his goons laughed, this time heartily, and Everett opened his eyes, glaring through the blood red at his sister's still unconscious form. He wasn't going to let them take her. That was his little sister. He had to protect her. He _had_ too.

With all the anger and strength he had, Everett roared and brought his hands up, then drove his right fist into Marty's knee, breaking it. Marty fell back onto his other foot, and Everett leaped up, turning to face Marty, who now had a look of fear in his eyes.

"Never, _ever_ touch my sister," he said, and reared back with his right arm and drove it as hard as he could into Marty's face, amazingly sending him flying over the staircase to land at the bottom of the twenty steps, completely unconscious. Marty's cronies gasped and looked with complete and utter fear at the small boy who miraculously took down the school's biggest thug, and then they rushed down to try to help him up.

Then the surge of anger was gone, and only pain was left. He picked up Leslie and carried her over his shoulder down the stairs, not looking at the three heathens as he passes, then carried her all the way home, and placed her into bed.

Days later, he would find out she had a concussion and was in a coma. He also found out that Marty Callahan was dead, killed as fragments of his skull sliced through his brain from a very hard blow on his head.

Everett Trinn was charged with manslaughter a quarter-year later, and placed into normal prison. He was at that time 16, and at his court hearing he looked deep into Leslie's eyes, as she sat in her wheelchair, then was carried off by the bailiff to serve his sentence.

When he got out seven years later, he was taller, stronger, smarter. He had learned the ways of fighting. Had learned the ways of life.

He met his sister in open arms, and then noticed his brother. Cal had finally returned from his schooling in Poland, and was now also taller, though not nearly as much so as Everett. The two simply nodded at each other, because Everett could sense the tension in him.

At the hearing of Everett upon his release, terms were read to him as he stood with his family. He noticed as he left the courtroom that a pair of government-like agents were watching him and his siblings intensely. As Everett & co. passed, they both turned their heads to follow them, looking much like twins, with their black suits, clean-cut hair, and earpieces.

As Everett was exiting the courtroom building, he proceeded to the washroom, and was followed by Cal. Everett knew a confrontation of some sort was coming, so he simply sighed and turned to face his younger brother.

"How could you?" were the first words from Cal's mouth. He moved his mouth as if he was trying to say many things at once, but couldn't get them out.

Everett looked into the devilish eyes of his brother, and was somewhat at a loss for words. At that moment Cal had finally found his tongue.

"You…you couldn't protect her, could you? Protect Leslie? That day, she was being attacked. You could have stepped in and stopped it. But you didn't," Cal saw Everett's expression, and expected him to retort that he did, but Cal stopped him before he could speak. "I know. She said you helped, but she got a concussion, Everett. A _concussion_. She was injured, and you did nothing. Then you ended up killing a man. She still cries at night, and screams out your name in fear. You son of a bitch, you're a wraith to our family. You shove fear into her…into all of us. Then you disappear. Now that you've come back, you're going to cause more trouble. Well, I for one am NOT going to let that happen."

"Cal, you're wrong. I-"

"No, Everett. _You're_ wrong. You're wrong for killing a man. You're wrong for going to prison. You're wrong for letting Leslie be injured. You're wrong for coming back. And now, I'm going to right your wrongs, Everett. I'm not letting you do anything to harm her again. Don't get close to her, or else you'll deal with me."

Everett was shocked at Cal's ideals. Why should he not see Leslie? It wasn't his fault. He'd tried to save her. If he hadn't stepped in, she'd have been violated. Everett was angry now. "Cal, I'd like to see you stop me. I haven't hurt her. If it wasn't for me…she'd be off a lot worse."

Cal looked hurt for a moment, then his face turned downward. His eyebrows bunched at the ridge of his nose. He snarled, then brought his right hand up to punch Everett in the jaw.

Everett stumbled backwards and hit his head on a mirror, shattering it. He reached up and grabbed his jaw, staring into Cal's eyes in shock. "You…" he began, then couldn't find words to describe what he saw and felt. _How can he be so strong?_ Came Everett's thoughts.

"Just remember," Cal said, shaking his right hand in pain, "if she ever gets hurt again, I'm blaming you, and you'll get a lot worse than this."

With a start his eyes opened. He sat up. Sweat was falling down his face. _Disturbing…_ he thought. He stood up, and cracked his neck.

_So…your brother is the key to your downfall…Mr. Trinn_.

Wraith shuddered and closed his eyes. He had had a funny feeling, as though someone was watching him. But it soon passed, and he left his quarters and headed through the hall to the bridge of the _Prophecy_. In there, he saw Cosine, hunched over her keyboard, typing to herself while humming lightly.

Wraith sighed and leaned on the wall, studying his sister. Her beauty was radiant, and she was one of the kindest people Wraith knew. Truly one of only people in this world that Wraith could trust. He sighed again, and this time she noticed and turned to look at him.

"Orders finally came in," she said, and hit a key, turning the right screen from Matrix coding to regular text. Wraith read it and sighed, shaking his head.

The Council had instructed the _Prophecy_ to leave Zion and head to a far, secure drop point, while they would contemplate what they would do and send the orders when the time came.

"That bad, huh?" said Cosine, peering over to look at the orders.

"Uh huh…" Wraith said non-chalant as he reread the orders.

"Want me to call the crew?" asked Cosine, and Wraith nodded. She went across to room, hit a couple of switches, and spoke into a microphone instructing them all that a meeting was at hand.

A few minutes later, everyone was in the breakfast room, sitting at the table and waiting for Wraith to arrive. He had waited to print out a hard copy of the instructions, and brought them with him to the room. When he arrived, every head turned to him expectantly, even Pike's.

Wraith noticed that under the table, Webb and Chess were still holding hands, and Webb still had a sour look in his eyes that were directed towards Wraith.

He cleared his throat, and looked down at the orders, beginning to recite them. "Instruction 57-SR-G3. Ship: _Last Prophecy_. Orders: The _Last Prophecy_ is instructed to move to drop point Alpha-G-SS-2 and enter the Matrix at rendezvous point Echo-3-F. From there, a route is included with these orders as to the location of the irregular Agent. The crew of the _Last Prophecy_ is ordered to engage the Agent, and try to learn as much as possible of it, then exit the Matrix and report finding to Zion."

"A freaking suicide mission," said Ice Fox, shaking his head. Wraith considered berating him, but he was right. Never before had a crew of a ship intentionally been sent to fight an Agent. Perhaps this situation was strange enough and frightened the Council that it was necessary.

"Indeed," Wraith said, placing the paper down and standing at the head of the table. "Any problems?"

Nobody responded. Wraith looked expectantly at Pike, expecting him to voice some concern, but he appeared to be ready to go after the Agent again.

"Fine," Wraith said. "We jack-in at 1600 hours. Enjoy your time."

Three hours later, everyone was on the uplink deck, getting into position in their seats to enter the Matrix. Wraith entered, followed by Cosine. "Ready?" she asked. In answer, Wraith sat down in his char after plugging everyone else in.

When he and Cosine were the only ones left, she looked down at him and kissed him on the cheek. "Don't worry about Pike," she said. "He won't do anything bad." She held his hand, and looked down at him.

"Just like he didn't before," Wraith muttered under his breath, letting go of his sister's hand and fidgeting around, getting comfortable in the dark, rough seat. She reached behind him to plug him in, and looked down at him again, holding the plug an hair's breadth from the back of his head.

"Good luck," she said, he closed his eyes as she shoved the sharp electronic device into Wraith's head, jacking him into the Matrix.

He opened his eyes, and looked out upon disaster. Buildings were torn down, looking very wire-frame. The ground was twisted. The sky-the sky was black. Totally. Everything had an odd eerie green glow to it. It looked like a hell. Looking down the street he stood on he noticed it ended a hundred yards away. Wraith turned to look the other way, and saw the same.

It was as though they weren't in the Matrix at all. It looked nothing like it should. It was a dark green abyss of mismatched coding and ruin. At the ends of the street and around the area was total black nothingness.

Everyone stood on the street, looking around at the scene and ominously at each other. Wraith, Webb, Chess, Ice Fox, Lost Hope, and RAM watched as Pike cautiously strode up to a building and gingerly reached forward to touch it with his hand. Immediately at one end of the street what looked like a hole in the wall opened. Beyond it Wraith could see normal daylight in the Matrix on a normal street. Then a figure entered.

It was Malcolm. Not a machination of his, but the true Malcolm. Every one of the _Prophecy_'s crew members at that point got into a fighting stance, ready for a battle. He simply strode forward and stood a good twenty yards from them, smiling, as the hole closed up behind him.

"Welcome to _my_ Matrix, Mr. Trinn," Malcolm said, calm and casual. "Do you like what I've done?" he added, looking around at the chaotic realm they all stood in. "This way I can destroy you without actually hurting the world I am soon going to rule over, because the tear in the Matrix I'm going to cause will be so drastic, nothing in this desolate hole will exist. Come to me now, doomed ones. You cannot stand to my power. I am the true ruler of the Matrix, and nothing and nobody will stop me!"

Wraith & co. felt around for their firearms, but there were none. Pike didn't even have his swords, and Webb lacked his staff. They were weaponless. "No, weapons are not allowed here. We fight _my_ way."

With that he stood in a fighting position, and in seconds, the seven fighters promptly surrounded him. With a leap Pike came in for a flying kick, but was stopped with a forearm and punched in the gut, sending him flying across the street to hit Ice Fox and send both crashing into a building. Then Lost Hope and RAM both went in for a kick, RAM kicking up high at Malcolm's face and Lost Hope down at his calves to trip him. He flipped back onto his hands, and over back onto his feet, then charged back at the two and elbowed RAM in the chest. Malcolm spun quickly and launched his foot into Lost Hope's chin, punting him down the street.

Malcolm ducked his head under a swift kick from Chess, and tripped her other leg, then punched her gut and sent her sprawling to the sidewalk. Wraith leapt forward with Webb to strike out at him, and he grabbed both after dodging their collective attacks, striking them together and tossing them away.

"Come on, you can all do better than that!" he roared, as the fighters stood again, looking warily at Malcolm and each other. Then together the four who were nearest to him dived at him, all attacking different points. He blocked three, but another high kick from RAM sent him backwards, stumbling and trying to regain his balance. Quickly and with as much grace as possible, Ice Fox charged at him and speared him in the gut, but Malcolm caught it and pressed his hands down onto Fox's shoulders, flipping over him just in time to be caught in the chin by a high kick from Pike. He was tossed a few inches up into the air, but as he came down he brought his fists together down onto Pike, slamming his face down onto the pavement.

Lost Hope had finally recovered and raced the distance back to Malcolm, leaping at him for a high kick. Malcolm pivoted on his right foot, swinging around his left and bringing it up to boot Lost Hope in the face as he flew in, sending him careening to the ground. Wraith tore up to him and managed to land a fist in his gut, but Malcolm reacted quick, bringing his own fist into Wraith's face, tossing him too across the street. Webb, Chess, RAM, and Ice Fox all attacked simultaneously, swinging their fists and knife-hands rapidly at Malcolm as they surrounded him, but he managed to twist away or block every attack. He back kicked Ice Fox, knocking him back, then brought his foot forward to kick Webb away, and throw out both his arms to send both Chess and Pike flying.

Wraith launched up, and rushed at Malcolm, and with accuracy predicted where Malcolm's fist would be, so he ducked under it and sent his knee into Malcolm's gut. Malcolm careened over holding his gut, then in anger looked up at Wraith, sending a shiver down his spine.

"Alright, then, Mr. Trinn. Time we now get busy." He stood up and held his hands out. Suddenly a large force appeared to come from his body, sending Wraith onto his back from the pressure. Malcolm's muscles bulged and he appeared to look a lot larger. "There we go," he said, cracking his neck. "Now executing at one hundred percent efficiency. Now, let's go."

Without Wraith even seeing it, Malcolm had picked him up by the collar and tossed him across the street. He crashed headfirst into a door, splintering and shattering it as he fell through into the building. When he managed to prop himself up and head back out the door, the scene was worse. Everyone was scattered around, beat up and hardly having strength to stand. Webb was held up by the neck by Malcolm in the middle of the street, who's fist was propped back, prepared to deliver a harsh blow.

Suddenly, Malcolm's head seemed to convulse and twist, then he came back to his attention, surprised. "Ah…so, they've learned something new," he said as he stared at nothing. Then he turned to Webb. "Let's try it on you."

With malicious speed, he brought his fist forward, and instead of punching Webb, he stopped an inch from his face and opened his hand. He then pressed his palm down on Webb's face, and a bright flash of light caused Wraith and the others to close their eyes as they heard Webb's anguished holler.

When they reopened them, Webb was on the ground, appearing unconscious, and Malcolm was keeled over, placing his hands on his knees for support as he breathed heavily. He looked up at them and laughed.

"Excellent," he said, smiling broadly as all the Freemind Commandoes rose to face him. "I'm off. If you can't beat one of us, you can't beat five of us. Farewell," he said, and he saluted them, then melted into a vortex and disappeared.

They all stood, apart from Webb, and went over to him, to see what Malcolm had done. Chess went down onto one knee and lifted him and turned him over so his blank face was facing upwards. His eyes were closed and emotionless. She leaned down over him, and suddenly his eyes opened. Chess screamed out in fear, and for good reason.

They were red. Pure red. No pupils. Just solid crimson. He sat up quickly, and then stood, as if reacting in a robotic way. Then all of a sudden, he struck. His foot came out and caught RAM in the chest, sending him soaring to the ground at the base of a building. He spun with his foot still in the air, and slammed it into Ice Fox's temple, knocking him too. Then he turned back to face Wraith, who was about to demand to know what he was doing, and hissed in an animal way, then brought his fist forward into Wraith's gut, then his head. Webb followed up with a quick set of jabs to Wraith's face, then a super-strong punch to Wraith's gut sent him flying back, landing at the base of a set of stairs.

Looking quickly for a solution, Wraith saw a small section of an iron guardrail that was on the stairs. He hopped up, noticing Webb approaching him, and kicked the rail into the air, then caught it in his right hand and turned back to Webb. Wraith ran forwards and then stopped, standing in a defensive position. "What are you doing, Webb!?" he bellowed.

In response, Webb roared at him in his animalistic way and then launched forward. Wraith had no choice but to swing the pole at Webb.

Big mistake. Webb brought his hand up and caught the pole, then jumped up and kicked Wraith, dropping him onto his back. Webb roared again and brought the pole back over his head, preparing to swing it down at Wraith.

Chess came running up to Webb, pleading with him to stop. Suddenly the monstrous expression he had fell, and as Chess came up to him and grabbed his arm, he confusedly looked at her, lowering the weapon.

With amazing speed, Wraith kicked it up out of his hands, and rolled back over his head, standing up in time to catch it as it fell. Chess let go of him and Webb raced at Wraith, now roaring again. Wraith brought the rail back, and then swung it forwards, towards Webb's head, as he approached.

Webb's head twisted around 180 degrees from the impact. He looked blankly at Chess behind him, who was holding her breath in a silent gasp, and he fell forwards, dying with a crash onto the pavement.

Chess rushed to him and held his head, then let go with repulse and realization that it was backwards. She looked up into Wraith's face, fear rampant in her eyes.

"I had no choice," Wraith said hurriedly. "I'm sorry," he added, with contempt. Webb was a great man. Or…had been a great man. And now he was dead, killed by Wraith.

No, not Wraith. _Killed by Malcolm. What had he said? They'd learned something new…what did he mean? Did he suddenly learn how to convert people, or infest them, or something_?

Looking down on Chess crying over Webb's carcass, he realized that it was true.

Enveloped in his thoughts he was called over by the others, who had witnessed the scene. Pike looked as angry as ever, and the other three seemed shocked beyond belief. Again a phone stood on pedestal, just waiting to be used. It rang, and Wraith gladly picked it up, leaving the dark abyss of the Matrix.


	7. Book 2: Chapter 6

Wraith stood in Webb's Zen garden, looking around longingly at the peaceful objects that would never again be used. Well, it'd be used one more time, in fact.

Wraith entered the doors of a dojo on one side of the garden, and once in there, Wraith crossed the floor where combat was held in a large red circle and entered a small room. In it were three open boxes. One held a staff, just like the one Webb used in battle. In another box was a gun, a small pistol that Webb could possibly have used. In the final box sat a shining golden katana.

Wraith picked it up gingerly and hefted it in his hands, feeling the balance of this magnificently-made blade with text written down the side of it. It was in Kanji, so he couldn't read it, but he made a mental note to ask Chess what it meant.

He was distracted when he heard a noise outside the small outcropping of a room and saw a figure leap up after gazing at Wraith. Wraith exited the room, still carrying the katana. "Hello, who's there?" he asked, and got silence in response.

As soon as Wraith stepped far enough into the room to put a foot in the red circle, an invisible gong sounded and a severely mechanical voice said "Beginning round three, katana."

Wraith wondered what that meant exactly, when he heard a noise from above him. He looked up to see a black figure drop down at him, holding another katana above his head. Wraith jumped back, and consequently the dark person missed.

The man landed low, making nearly no sound, and looked up at Wraith. "Will you not face a warrior?" he said, brandishing up his sword in a salute.

_Ah, a training program_, thought Wraith. In response to the challenge, Wraith brought up his own katana and held it out expertly in an equal salute. _This one's for Webb_.

The ninja lunged at him, swinging the blade he held horizontally at Wraith's chest, and Wraith hopped back, barely escaping the sword. As he caught his footing on the ground, he pressed back at the ninja and stabbed forward.

Pivoting to the side to dodge the attack, the ninja prepared to counter, but bent backwards to duck under the sudden chop of Wraith's sword. The ninja pulled himself back up and hopped over a follow-up cut, then swung down vertically as he fell back to the floor.

Wraith brought up his blade in defense, and the two katanas clashed, sending a few sparks up into the air. The two warriors held their positions momentarily, staring at each other. Then with amazing speed the ninja leaped back, and got into another stance. Wraith too, prepared himself again.

This time however, as the ninja lunged at him, Wraith surprised the warrior by moving forward before Wraith's foe could swing, and slashed downwards at the ninja, splitting him into two pieces as blood sprang out and sprayed everywhere.

Wraith caught his breath, then looked at the corpse as it disappeared. _That was too easy_, he thought. He was correct.

A whizzing sound revealed another opponent, and Wraith spun, katana in hand, in time to see a second and third shape leap over him. He twisted back and threw his hands out, extending the blade to block a double chop that would have decapitated him.

Both of the new ninjas leaped back, and slowly paced around to place themselves on opposite sides of Wraith, effectively flanking him. To protect himself, Wraith was forced to watch neither, and look forward, continually checking the corners of his eyes for movement.

He caught sight of motion to his right, and twisted in that direction, swinging high to miss the neck of the ducking ninja, then whirling back left to block an incoming attack from the second. Wraith leaped over a low attack, and chopped downwards, splitting the first ninja in two, then quickly brought his own katana back up to block yet another midriff hit from the second.

Both competitors paused, and with amazing speed, Wraith jumped back and threw his katana at the ninja, who leaned out of the way and grabbed it. Unfortunately for the dark warrior, as he turned back Wraith had fetched the downed ninja's blade and was stabbing it through the second's abdomen. He twisted it, a ferocious grin on his face, then wrenched it out.

Both ninjas and their weapons disappeared, and Wraith had nearly no time to fetch back the blade that was Webb's before many other shapes leaped through the paper-like walls to land outside the circle. Slowly, Wraith stood and risked glances around. At least ten more warriors stood around him, all gingerly stepping forward with their blades outstretched.

He calmly closed his eyes and stood in the middle of the ever-closing circle of foes. He opened them again, this time into the bullet-time of the Matrix.

With remarkable grace and poise, Wraith slowly (at least to him) cut down many of the ninjas one by one as they approached, slicing the first across the chest and catching his sword as it fell from the carcass. He then dived to the second and spun tornado-style trough him, sending his torso across the room, and continued on to the third, stopping and with both katanas cutting a large X across his chest and spraying blood. He then hopped lightly high into the air over a charge from another ninja, tossing the katana he had attained down though his chest and impaling him. As he fell on top of another he kicked the side of the ninja's blade aside and severed his head. The sixth rushed at him, to have his sword kicked into the air, then he was stabbed through the gut. Wraith then caught the falling sword and spun around, tossing the blade across the circle to skewer a seventh ninja through the heart, and lodge him up against the wooden door.

The eighth, ninth, and final combatants all stood side by side, looking warily at their fallen comrades and each other. Then Wraith let himself fall out of bullet-time, breathing a sigh of contentment. He smiled and got into a strange but effective position, and urged his foes forward with a motion of his hand.

All three charged forward, swinging wildly. Wraith managed to block the first two slices by sweeping his own katana forward, and lean away from the third. He pivoted and jammed his elbow into the middle one's gut, then leaped up to dropkick another, and swing his blade to decapitate the third. The remaining to stood groggily and rushed forward, bellowing their battle cries in a language unknown to Wraith. He firmed up, then rushed between the two, and spun back around before they could, slicing through the one to his left, then blocking a hit from the right, and cutting him down too.

He breathed heavily, now sweating. Again, all of the ninja's, their blood, and their weapons disappeared. In their place however, came many, many more.

Wraith backed away from the stream that came through the door, and stopped, looking up to see another flow of ninjas come piling through an upper door onto the elevated perimeter walkway that traced around the room a good twenty feet above the floor.

Dropping into a stance that was low and defensive, Wraith repeatedly shuffled around, looking this way and that as many, many warriors trailed in, surrounding him on the floor. Others stood on the balconies above. This was a tight situation.

Wraith shifted his weight from foot to foot, preparing himself for a difficult task. He was extensively tired from the previous fighting, and he knew he couldn't hold bullet-time very long.

Suddenly one of them sprang at him; Wraith sidestepped the vertical swipe as he entered bullet-time, swung, sliced the man into two, then dropped out of bullet-time again. Another charged forward, and he repeated the process. A third and fourth did as well, and he took them down with difficulty.

Wraith looked around, sweat pouring down his face. He felt a strange sensation, and noticed a shuriken whistling past his ear from behind. He spun to face the aggressor and swung his katana to block more that came. The final one he caught, roared in anger, and launched back. It soared into his forehead, and he stood dead momentarily, then fell forward.

The ninja's nearby comrades looked at the downed me, then roared and hurried forward, a full compliment on eight. Wraith entered bullet-time, and sped towards them, cutting down one, then two, then three, then decapitating a fourth, slicing a fifth in half, stabbing the sixth, leaping up and kicking the seventh in the temple, sending his brain flying out the other side of his head, and finally landing and stabbing the last.

Wraith nearly fell over in exhaustion, going down to one knee. He looked up and around himself, wheezing in pain. From above, the ninjas leaped down with their katanas outstretched. Wraith took a huge breath and leaped up, cutting two in the air as he rose, and landing on the barricade on the upper level. He rent his blade through the combatants that flowed around his feet, cutting them up.

A lone ninja with a shuriken tossed it at the wooden barricade, cutting the support underneath Wraith and sending him forward onto the wooden upper level floor. With all his might and concentration he entered bullet-time, then spun around as fast as he could with his katana, slicing up half a dozen of his foes. But as they fell, more came in.

Wraith stopped, and decided on a course of action. He grabbed a katana from a fallen ninja, and leaped out of the second story level, flying through the paper walls and landing on the grass outside. He had to find somewhere to make a good defensive position. He saw a bridge overhanging a small pond.

Rushing to it, he looked back to a continual black stream of fighters against the serene atmosphere of the garden. He mounted the bridge, and stepped backwards to the opposite end as ninjas began to flow onto it.

Wraith pelted them with both katanas, sending sliced and diced bodies over the bridge to stain the pool red, and he killed at least twenty of the seemingly endless stream until they began to get smart, and some went around the pool as well. Wraith noticed the problem and started pressing forward, trying to get a position in the middle of the bridge. He concentrated, entered into bullet-time, and launched forward, double-kicking a pair of ninjas and stemming the flow as they all fell backwards. Wraith stood in the center of the bridge, facing out towards the pool, as on one side the ninjas flowed forward to meet him, and on the other they stood up.

Wraith could tell no more than thirty were left, and nearly that number were in the water beneath him, staining the pool red. From each direction they came, charging forwards continually. Wraith would cut one way, while kicking in the other, or wait until they were close enough and slice in both directions.

_Twenty more to go_, he thought as what felt like rivers of water poured over his face and his clothing. He was beginning to lose strength, and could no longer completely sever limbs or heads. He stabbed into one's gut, left the katana there, grabbed the corpse's katana as he fell over the side, and spun to lodge it into another's neck, sending him too over the edge. _Ten left_…

He caught one up in his foot under the chin, then spun and cut him across the abdomen. Blood poured out, staining Wraith's clothes with more blood; it was completely maroon by now. A kick to the neck launched another ninja to his death, and a series of three cuts ended the lives of a trio of the warriors. _Five more_, his mind pleaded as his muscles began to give out.

He sliced through the final pair on one side of the bridge, then turned back to face the last three. He took all his strength and cut through the wood of the bridge, making a small line right across it from left to right. The weight of bodies made it start to bed in. He skipped forward and jumped upwards, kicking the center ninja square in the chest. He went flying onto the grass.

As he passed between two more, he elbowed up in either direction and both became unconscious as they fell back onto the bridge. Wraith cut it again as he ran by, sending them to drown in the blood red water as the bridge collapsed in. _Just one left_.

Continuing on, Wraith reach the one he had kicked, who had risen again but was now weaponless. Wraith reached him, slammed his fist into his nose, then with all his remaining strength sliced cleanly through his neck, sending his head soaring up into the air amid a spray of blood, then cut again as it fell, splitting the head in two.

His goal complete, Wraith fell over backwards onto his back. He closed his eyes, and drowsily opened them. He mouthed a silent scream.

Ninjas. Everywhere. They now filled the entire garden, with him in a small open space, one of the few remaining. Wraith reached up with a now blood-free arm and wiped his brow, making sure he wasn't dreaming.

A single ninja came to stand over him and raised his katana. Wraith prepared for the death strike.

It came.

The sword came crashing down, right to where Wraith's heart would be. As soon as the blade touched skin however, the ninja froze. A beep came to Wraith's ears, followed by the same mechanical voice: "Program complete. Level 4 in round 3 attained. Ending simulation."

The ninjas disappeared, and the garden returned to its former serene state as the bridge was reconstructed. Wraith looked around, and at the katana still in his hand.

_Webb_, he thought, looking at the foreign script,_ I will avenge your death_. Then he felt hands lifting him up, and he fell into unconsciousness, still gripping the golden sword.

He opened his eyes a minute later to see two feminine faces, Cosine's and Chess'. They were both looking at him, in Webb's and Chess' former quarters. "The King awakes…" Chess says, as he and Cosine help him to his feet in all his sweat and tremor.

"Have a bad day?" Cosine asked. She and Chess released him; he regained balance on his feet, shook his head to focus, then looked at his sister.

"An old training program of Webb's," he said.

Chess nodded lightly. "Round three, I assume?" she asked, with the air about her of a lost memory. "He never managed to pass level seven," she added.

Wraith's mouth dropped open and he couldn't find words to describe how insanely skilled Webb was to be able to do that. "I…I got beaten after stage four!"

Chess shrugged easily, turning to look at Webb's former PPU. "He practiced nearly every night in that simulation. All three rounds, as many levels in each as far as he could go."

_So that's how he got so good_, Wraith thought, gazing at the PPU. This reminded him of the sword. "What was the text on Webb's sword?" he asked Chess. "It was in Japanese, I couldn't understand it."

"Actually, Japanese has one spoken language, and three common written sub-languages: Hiragana, Kanji, and Katakana. The three lines of short, small characters say the motto of Webb's former master in Kanji:

ジャスティス justice

平静 serenity

治平 peace

The two larger lines are Katakana, which is commonly used for names and foreign words:

トリスタン TO-RI-SU-TA-N

ウオンゴ U-O-N-GO"

Wraith listened with interest as she easily recited the foreign language. "Tristan Wong. His name in the Matrix," he said as he bobbed his head as she finished.

She nodded and looked again at the machine. Wraith came to a realization it was the last (and only, for that matter) thing that existed on this ship that was the property of Webb. She added that "The sword was given to him by his master, before he was freed from the Matrix. He had refused to use it while working for the Freeminds, because it reminded him of the fact he used to be trapped within it's confines.

"You can have it, Wraith," she added, noticing him looking at the private Matrix-like machine. "He's not using it anymore…"

Wraith turned to look at Chess again, tears swelling up in her eyes. She tried to cover up her anguish as much as possible, but occasionally people just had to let it out. Cosine stepped over and placed her arms around her shoulders, hugging and trying to shush her as she catered kind and caring comments to Chess, who was now weeping audibly.

With as much dignity as he could partake in, Wraith hefted up the heavy PPU and carried it down the hall from the room. As he entered his own, he could still hear Chess bawling from Webb's former quarters.

He placed it down at the head of his bunk. Wraith hadn't owned one recently, primarily due to his management of time because he was a Captain; whenever he was on his ship he was doing duties, and when he was in Zion he was meeting with other Captains or the Council.

Wraith looked up from his kneeling position aside his bunk to check a clock of his on a small table he had set up in the room, which had only a lamp on it, and the clock itself. It read that he had half an hour before they would reach their appointed drop location, so he decided to program himself into the PPU.

Wraith plugged the PPU's input/output cord into a small outlet on the wall designed for that purpose. He lay down on his bunk, rustling backwards to shift his neck onto the pin that inserted into the back of his head, and he blinked.

As he opened his eyes again, he stood in a blank white space, with nothing but a small computer control panel a few feet away, shrouded by a ghostly glow. He strode up to it and looked down, seeing information about possible programs to utilize and modify.

Soaring around the keyboard with his fingers, Wraith managed to remove the datum that said this belonged to Webb and insert a datum proclaiming it now Wraith's in only a matter of seconds. He then proceeded to clear out all the programs and their usage and record histories, aside from the garden simulator, of course, and ported the terminal into the _Last Prophecy_'s database drive, copying over a few programs he had previously stored there, including a martial arts tournament/trainer of Cosine's, a targeting range of Flash's, and a dojo simulator of Pike's.

Following that, he decided to prepare himself for the following mission, and opened up a new program file. The background around Wraith and the input terminal shifted to the dull gray that was the sky and backdrop in incomplete (purposely or otherwise) programs. Wraith began to command to terminal to input certain commands, structural and interactive, into the program. After what seemed a few moments, he had completed what seemed like a plain dark gray room, with no windows or doors. All that was there in the circular space was a black ceiling, and shadowy walls.

Feeling that to be too plain, Wraith added a few minor touches. He formed a courtyard of sorts outside the building, with grasses and high walls, and random weapons lying here and there, just for fun. He placed two doors in the room, on either side, which opened into opposite ends of the courtyard, and made the roof chain-link. In four parts around the room, the floor was a rounded rectangular grating, which, with enough pressure, would open down on hinges to fall into a pit of fire.

_Much more fitting_, he thought. Adding safety procedures for any humans who could be in the program, Wraith nearly finished. All that was left was…_opposition_.

Wraith's fingers flung rapidly around the terminal, and a visual image of Malcolm began to appear in the center of the room, where Wraith had previously added in large black lettering the letters "F" and "C" in a logo style.

Malcolm was stock still, standing totally erect and unmoving. Wraith called up visual records the _Prophecy_ had made of their most recent fight with Malcolm, forming the shape of his body. He called up emotional and audio records to give him a ferocious presence. Finally, he called up physical monitors and cross-referenced it with processed strength and fortitude statistics of the Freeminds to calculate and approximate a relatively accurate formation of power that this false Malcolm would have.

Finally complete, Wraith pressed a voice-command button and the terminal disappeared as Wraith verbally saved the program under the filename "Malcolm v1.0".

He commanded by voice to begin the program, and Malcolm got into a fighting stance, backing away slightly to place himself opposite Wraith with the Freemind Commandoes logo in the midpoint between the two. Wraith set himself into a combat position and grit his teeth-

A buzzing sound came into Wraith's mind, a signal that someone was calling him from his PPU. He sighed. "Shut down program, eject users."

A second later Wraith looked up from his bunk to see RAM looking down on him. "Ve are zere," the young man said, and left the room. Wraith stood up, rubbing his neck. The PPU's weren't nearly as comfortable as the standard jack-in chairs, that was for sure.

Wraith again checked his clock, noting that a half hour had passed in what seemed only a few moments. He made his way to the bridge, passing the crew on the entry lounge, and looked over Cosine's shoulder at a series of readings, to which she seemed to be amazingly surprised at.

"What is it?" he asked her intuitively.

"Four of them," she said astonished, not removing her eyes from he station to look at Wraith, as if she had to make sure what she was looking at was true.

"Four of who…?" Wraith asked in return, but he feared in his mind that he knew who she was referring to. "Malcolm?"

She nodded in response, and hit a few keys, changing one of her crew-monitors to a view of the planet. She hit another series of keys, formatting over transmission the data on locations of separate Malcolm instances. One appeared each in different locations: central Canada, northern Ireland, the center of India, and finally in Japan.

Wraith contemplated for a moment. "Could it possibly be a trick? Maybe a deflective emanation from a central point? Maybe-"

"No," she cut him off, apparently scared enough to do so. "I've been checking those routes for the past half an hour, and if it were so, I would've found something by now."

Again Wraith considered trying a possible cause of the situation. But then it hit him. "He said there were five…"

"What? Who said?" his sister asked. Wraith explained to her that Malcolm had noted that there were five of them, and they couldn't beat them all.

"But there are only four," she replied, hoping herself it wasn't true.

"Well, we're getting no readings from where his glitch-realm was, in the eastern US," Wraith added. "Perhaps he's there."

She nodded, and continued. "Well, we should check it out."

Wraith thought of the proposition, then shook his head. "No," he stated, matter-of-factly. "We have a mission to complete. We'll go for these Malcolm's then get instructions on whatever's in that… Void."

Cosine nodded heavily. Wraith could see the stress was setting in on her. "What do they expect you to do?" she asked. "If you couldn't take down one, how are we supposed to wipe out _four_?"

"Well, for starters," Wraith said, looking up to the roof as he recalled his instructions, "we have our weapons now, seeing as how we detected no other Void and Malcolm appears to only control things within said Void, so he can't take them from us." She nodded thoughtfully, and he continued. "Plus," he added, "the Council said we'd be getting some 'extra help'. I don't know yet what that means, but I hope it's good."

She nodded, and he hugged her as he left to the entry lounge, where the rest of the crew awaited their jack-in to the Matrix for this mission. "Alright," Wraith said, clapping his hands, and setting himself in as Cosine followed to jack them all in. He explained to them quickly the situation and their orders.

Pike, as expected, protested. "Four? FOUR!?" he couldn't find words to describe what he apparently thought, so fell silent and leaned back into his chair, shaking his head.

"Can we do it," came Ice Fox's voice, to which Wraith simply nodded.

"How?" asked Lost Hope interrogatively.

"We're getting our weapons this time, and…help," he responded, and before Lost Hope could ask what kind of help, he said "I don't know what kind of help yet, but I was told the Council had to pull a lot of strings to get it for us."

With no other responses, Wraith nodded and leaned back. "Fine, let's move in, take him out, and move out again."

Then they all jacked in for round two with the Malcolm clones.

The clone of Malcolm stood, leaning on a wall, staring at nothing in particular. The group of Malcolms had agreed to just get him to wait for the Freeminds and fight them, seeing as how before a previous clone had no trouble with them.

He did have doubts though, knowing full well they'd be equipped with weaponry this time around, but still felt confident enough to take them out.

Until he heard the thunder, that is.

A rolling roar came from his left, in the small factory he stood in, and a hard wall crashed in, followed by a large tank. It stopped scanning the room, and the barrel swiveled over and down to face him as he jumped out from the wall and looked at it questioningly.

A figure hopped out of the top of the tank, equipped with two swords. Malcolm knew him as Cal Trinn.

Malcolm was afraid, but tried to keep it in, and spoke as menacingly as he could. "Ah, Mr. Trinn," he coolly said, as if there was nothing more than a cap gun aimed at him, rather than a heavy shell-launching mechanical beast. "Welcome to Winnipeg."

"Shut up," the small man said, and leapt down, charging at Malcolm, as the tank opened fire, followed by others leaping out the top.

Wraith watched everyone but himself and RAM out the top hatch of the tank, and patted his shoulder. "If worst comes to worst, RAM," he said, "Don't hesitate to leave again."

RAM looked at him without remorse. "I'd never leaf zee team," he said, and Wraith smiled, then leaped out of the vehicle. It rolled forward slightly as RAM sat at the controls preparing another shot towards Malcolm.

The rogue program had leaped away from the first shell, and was now firing rapidly at all the other Commandoes as he backed away, always keeping the tank barrel in the corner of his eye. Suddenly, Pike leaped out from nowhere and struck at him; Malcolm barely had time to pivot away and bring his airborne foot back to knock one of Pike's swords from his hands.

Wraith ran forwards, dual Berettas blazing, as Malcolm knocked Pike aside and twisted away from his bullets, going to draw the sword he had previously tossed aside. He reached it just as Wraith reached him, and Malcolm spun with the sword, aiming it at Wraith.

It was stopped by a thin golden glint. Trist, as Wraith had come to call Webb's former blade, was in his hands. He had made a pact with himself to use it, in Webb's memory.

Fortunately, for him the blade was of excellent make. Malcolm's katana became chipped on the blade as it struck Trist, and with a look resembling fear the clone looked up at Wraith. The gaze soon turned to anger. Malcolm brought his foot up and kicked Wraith square in the gut, sending him to the floor a good distance away.

He immediately rose, to see Malcolm surrounded by many of the others. Reminiscing back to the fight in the Void, Wraith recalled Malcolm's innate ability to subconsciously multi-task his blocking and hitting.

Malcolm spun to boot away Lost Hope, followed by Chess, and Pike. He faced Ice Fox, who lowered his fists, and leaped back, pulling out a thick barreled shotgun. Malcolm lunged towards him, and took a shotgun blast, which he nearly dodged. Two bullets became imbedded in his left leg, and a spurt of blood poured out of the wound to fountain onto Ice Fox and the floor.

Ice Fox laughed, and cocked the weapon for another blast. He fired, but Malcolm brought up his hand, and what appeared to be a vortex similar to the one he would disappear into arose in front of his palm and with lightning speed grew to the size of a large disk, with a three foot diameter. Alternating shades of blue appeared to flow towards the center.

Small tendrils that resembled blue lightning shot out of the center of the eddy, latching onto the bullets and stopping them; visibly the bullets began to stretch, and were sucked into the portal to disappear.

Ice Fox froze, stunned at whatever had happened. Malcolm threw his hand forward, and the vortex still hovered an inch in front of his palm-out hand. It enveloped the barrel of the shotgun, which stretched and shimmered, it's molecules of programming rushing into the vortex. To avoid being sucked in himself, Ice Fox let go of the weapon, and it too disappeared into the eddy.

All stood in disbelief as Malcolm chuckled, and with amazing speed the portal disappeared back into his palm as he reached forward to land a hard chop to Ice Fox's neck, incapacitating him.

Malcolm spun and blocked a high strike from Pike with his own blade, then delivered first a jab to Pike's abdomen, sending him careening over, then a hard roundhouse aimed for his temple, which sent him blasting off, skidding across the floor.

Chess ran forward to take his place, picking up the dropped sword, but Malcolm easily sliced hard enough to knock it away from her and elbow her away from himself as well.

Wraith and Lost Hope followed up together, sending chops, punches, and kicks at Malcolm from opposite sides, however the flank wasn't working. Malcolm had only to bring up his hands into a cross-block to stop a simultaneous high kick from both, then throw his legs out, tripping them into the air. Following up, he twisted around and gutted Lost Hope with his left fist, spinning back to catch Wraith in the chest with his foot as he lay on the ground, punting him across the floor.

Suddenly a hard blast roared from somewhere, and Malcolm brought his hand forward again, opening a vortex. The shell paused in midair before it, but the program appeared to be struggling, so he brought his other hand forward as well, dropping the sword and adding strength to the portal and doubling its size to a good six feet.

The shell coalesced into the portal and disappeared. Malcolm dropped his hands and sighed, panting lightly from the stress.

Bad move.

Wraith and the whole team rushed him, attacking viciously in melee combat. He struggled, but after awhile it was clear this was a standoff. Wraith hopped back from the group, drew out Trist, and launched himself up in bullet-time, coming down overhead of Malcolm. The clone roared and blasted the others away from him like he did in the Void.

As Wraith fell down to him, he could see the larger, rippling muscles the ascendance had given him. Malcolm looked up as Wraith fell, blade extended. He smirked and casually brought his forearm up to block.

Bad move. Again.

Apparently the remarkable programming of Trist was unknown to Malcolm, because the blade cleaved through his arm at the elbow, tossing it across the floor with a spatter of blood. Malcolm fell to one knee, roaring in anguish and grasping at the stump of his arm.

Wraith was preparing to follow up the attack with a decapitation, but Malcolm had quickly tripped him and rammed him aside. He knew the tank was preparing to fire again, so he hurried up to it, and placed his remaining hand on the lip of the barrel. Again the blue eddy appeared, and bolts of blue began to ripple and shimmer across the surface of the tank as it started to twist and morph in shape.

RAM was still inside.

Wraith was rushing towards the machine, preparing to help him escape the doomed machine. He apparently knew something was wrong too, because he leaped out of the top of the machine, and hopped off of it, just as it stretched and disappeared into the vortex, twisting into an odd shape to go into its three foot diameter.

Malcolm spun to face them all, roaring in anger. "You want a fight? Alright, you've got one!" He brought his hand up and held it above his head. Once again the portal appeared, but this time the blue was flowing outward to the edges of the disk, rather than to the middle.

Out of it the shotgun he had absorbed previously appeared, stretching into its normal shape and popping up a foot or so into the air. Malcolm released the vortex and caught the gun as it fell, then turned it on Pike. He blasted, but Pike was quick.

The pair of bullets that actually would have come in contact with him ricocheted off Pike's katana as it spun furiously like a helicopter blade, sending both shards of lead off in random directions. Pike brought his sword up, smirking, and swung it downwards.

Malcolm, however, was expecting that, and brought the shotgun up and turned it perpendicular to the blade, stopping it in its tracks. The program pushed upwards, sending Pike off balance with his katana, then swung the shotgun around to knock Pike away.

Chess and Lost Hope had caught up to Malcolm. He blasted at Chess, who knew it was coming and was already rolling out of the way. Lost Hope belted him in the side with a kick, sending him sprawling away, but he recovered his balance and came back at the Freemind, blocking a knee with his own and sending a head butting down onto Lost Hope, knocking him off balance, then all together kicked backwards at Chess who was now rising, and swung the gun in his hands forward at Lost Hope, throwing both into the air to land far away.

He turned on RAM and Ice Fox, who were approaching, and both lashed out with punches, to which he blocked most of what he could with only one arm. He knocked both back, and brought the shotgun forward, trained on RAM, then stopped. His face became emotionless, and he looked down at his chest.

The golden tip of a katana was extending out of it a full inch, but was now smeared maroon in blood. Malcolm looked back up at RAM and Lost Hope, who were staring at the tip of the blade.

"You may kill me now, but be sure you'll see me again," the program said, then fell forwards and died. Wraith stood behind him, looking down on the corpse. It turned into what appeared to be many thousands of small green lights, and they all split, floating off at high speeds in four different directions, passing through the Freemind Commandoes and the walls.

Trist clanged onto the floor, no longer being lodged into the program's back. Wraith stepped forward and picked it up, wiping the blood off on his sleeve.

Chess was already opening her cell phone to call Cosine, all the while staring at Trist. The two apparently were in a good friendly relationship, and Chess nodded many times as Cosine spoke to her.

"What do you think he meant?" asked Ice Fox, looking at the spot on the floor where Malcolm's corpse had been.

RAM voiced his opinion next: "And vat where those portals?"

Wraith looked up at the hole where the tank had entered. Snow was billowing in, carried by a harsh wind. "We'll talk to Zion and see…" and to that he added, "Damn, this place-Winnipeg, was it?-is cold. They should call it Winterpeg."


End file.
